The Santa rally appears to be coming early this year, with the local bourse this morning on track for its sixth straight day of gains and set to enjoy its second-best week of the year.
At noon AEDT on Friday, the S&P/ASX200 index was up 67.8 points, or 0.92 per cent, to 7,445.7, while the broader All Ordinaries was up 68.1 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 7,667.5.
For the week the ASX200 was up 3.47 per cent since last Friday's close, which would be its best weekly performance since a 3.7 per cent gain in mid-July.
The gains came even after the Bank of England and European Central Bank both overnight went in different directions than the US Federal Reserve did a day earlier, disputing the notion that interest rate cuts would come quickly in 2024.
"We are not surprised at the European pushback and forewarned this would be the case," wrote NAB senior market strategist Gavin Friend.Â
Both central banks will need more confirmation from data such as labour market reports that inflation has indeed been vanquished before committing to rate cuts, Mr Friend said.
Every sector except property - the strongest gainer on Thursday - was in the green at midday, with mining the biggest gainer, up 2.5 per cent.
BHP was up 2.9 per cent, Fortescue had climbed 2.5 per cent and Rio Tinto had advanced 3.0 per cent.
In the energy sector, Santos had advanced 2.7 per cent, Woodside had added 1.6 per cent and Whitehaven Coal was up 2.0 per cent.
All of the Big Four banks were higher, with ANZ up 1.7 per cent and the other three climbing around two-thirds of a per cent.
Pathology chain Healius was down 2.6 per cent and Australian Clinical Labs had fallen 2.1 per cent after ACL withdrew its takeover offer for Healius.