Australia: Shares set to snap three-day losing streak; New Zealand up

[BENGALURU] Australian shares rose on Wednesday on the back of gains in financial and tech stocks after three straight sessions of losses due to fears over a fast-spreading new Covid-19 strain and fresh restrictions at home.

The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.8 per cent to 6,654.20 by 0039 GMT.

The benchmark index dropped more than 2 per cent over the past three sessions as the detection in Britain of the new coronavirus variant prompted many countries to shut their borders with the nation, raising fears of a slower global economic recovery.

"Europe and the US are high risk areas and money is leaving them and moving to other regions like New Zealand and Australia, where market risk is nearly the same but pandemic risk is much lower," said Mathan Somasundaram, chief executive at Deep Data Analytics.

"The likelihood is that we see the early optimism fading through the day." Australia's most populous state on Wednesday "modestly" relaxed some restrictions just for the Christmas period following a second straight day of low case numbers, although parts of Sydney's northern seaside suburbs remain in a lockdown.

Leading the gains, Australian tech stocks rose as much as 2.2 per cent. Buy-now-pay-later firm Afterpay and Wisetech Global each climbed over 3 per cent.

The Healthcare sector rose 1.1 per cent, with CSL advancing 1.3 per cent and Mesoblast firming nearly 10 per cent.

Shares of Orthocel jumped 13.4 per cent after the biotech firm said it received Australian market approval to supply its CelGro collagen medical device in dental bone and tissue regeneration procedures.

The heavyweight financial sub-index strengthened 1 per cent, with all the "Big Four" banks posting gains.

Bucking the trend, miners fell 0.9 per cent.

BHP Group shed 0.7 per cent, while Rio Tinto was marginally lower.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index climbed 0.8 per cent at 12,949.68.

Both Meridian Energy and a2 Milk gained over 4 per cent.

REUTERS