Australia: Banks, miners lift shares; tech stocks track Wall Street peers lower
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[BENGALURU] Australian shares edged higher on Wednesday, led by heavyweight miners and banks, while losses in tech companies tracking overnight Wall Street losses capped gains.
The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.2 per cent to 7,080.80 as at 0040 GMT, after slipping as much as 0.2 per cent earlier.
Overnight, Wall Street finished lower as investors dumped heavyweight growth stocks.
Blue-chip tech giants dragged the Nasdaq Composite index about 2 per cent lower, its biggest single-day decline in almost six weeks.
Australian tech stocks tracked these losses and fell nearly 2 per cent, with heavyweight buy-now-pay-later firm Afterpay and WiseTech Global dropping 3.6 per cent and 2.5 per cent, respectively.
Banks were the top boosts to the benchmark, advancing as much as 0.7 per cent to hit their highest since February last year.
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Australia and New Zealand Banking Group jumped as much as 0.8 per cent, after its first-half cash profit more than doubled from last year. It, however, declined about 2 per cent later in the session.
The country's No. 2 lender Westpac Banking Corp was up as much as 0.4 per cent, brushing off a civil proceeding initiated by the Australian corporate watchdog against the bank on allegations of insider trading.
Miners traded 0.2 per cent lower after gaining about 0.4 per cent earlier in the session, with gold miners being the biggest drags after bullion prices fell more than 1 per cent overnight.
Gold miners were down 1.8 per cent, with Newcrest Mining and Northern Star Resources shedding 1 per cent and 2.8 per cent, respectively.
Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index fell as much as 1 per cent to 12,787.44.
The top percentage losers in the benchmark were Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation, down 2.31 per cent, followed by Vista Group International and Mercury NZ, losing about 2 per cent each.
Data showed unemployment rate in the country fell unexpectedly in the March quarter, as the economy created more jobs than forecast.
REUTERS
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