Australia: Energy, miners push shares up 1% despite Federal Reserve's rate-hike signals

[BENGALURU] Australian shares jumped 1 per cent on Thursday, rebounding from heavy losses suffered earlier in the week, as energy and mining firms gained on strong commodity prices, even as Wall Street ended lower overnight on the US central bank's hawkish stance.

The S&P/ASX 200 index was up 1.1 per cent at 7,042.1, as of 2338 GMT, marking its best intraday gain in nearly three weeks.

The benchmark, which was closed for trading on Wednesday, lost 5.2 per cent in the prior three sessions.

Local energy sector soared 3.7 per cent - biggest percentage boost to the benchmark - as oil prices breached the US$90 a barrel level for the first time in seven years on the back of tight supply and rising political tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

That helped heavyweights Woodside Petroleum and Santos advance about 4 per cent each. Beach Energy jumped 7.1 per cent while Origin Energy added 3 per cent.

Heavyweight mining sector climbed 2.1 per cent to snap a three-day losing streak, marking its best intraday gain in a week, as iron ore futures in top steel producer China jumped more than 3 per cent on Wednesday amid supply concerns.

Top global miners BHP Group, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group gained between 0.5 per cent and 4 per cent, with Rio marking its best day in two weeks.

Meanwhile, investors looked past the US Federal Reserve's indication from its meeting overnight that it would likely hike interest rates in March and reaffirmed its plans to end bond purchase programme the same month.

"The Fed has cut nothing and continues to build its balance sheet (no tapering yet). No panic tightening here. No over-reaction, despite the market talk. Relief for risk assets leaves room for market rates to re-test higher," analysts at Dutch-bank ING said in a note.

Australian banking stocks put on 2 per cent, while tech stocks erased early gains to decline 0.6 per cent.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index gained 0.2 per cent to 12,204.48. REUTERS