Bargain hunters and a rise in the iron ore price have helped lift the Australian share market following four days of heavy losses.
The iron ore price rose 1.4 per cent overnight, giving the miners bit of a boost, Australian Stock Report head of research Chris Conway said.
However, he said the biggest factor behind the market’s rise on Friday morning was the fact it had suffered heavy consecutive losses.
“The market has been oversold in the past four sessions when fundamentally not too much has changed,” he said.
“Bargain hunters are out there looking at the banks and miners, which have been beaten up so badly, who are ready to take some risks on the expectation that the market will bounce back.”
The big four banks and major miners were mixed at 1025 AEST.
BHP Billiton dipped 10 cents to $27.99, while Rio Tinto gained 49 cents to $57.23 and Fortescue Metals was up 5.5 cents at $2.335.
Commonwealth Bank added once cent to $80.55, Westpac was up eight cents to $31.48, but National Australia Bank was down 30 cents at $32.02 and ANZ fell 19 cents to $31.31.
NAB has completed its $5.5 billion capital raising after selling more than 28 million shares overnight on Thursday.
The next big market event is US non-farm payroll employment numbers due out on Friday night, Australian time.
