WBC Westpac Banking Corp

   By Robb M. Stewart 
 

MELBOURNE, Australia--For the first week out of the last four, Australian stocks pushed higher as the market clawed its way back from profit taking on Friday.

The S&P/ASX 200 ended the day little changed, gaining 4.7 points, or 0.1%, to settle at 5106.7. The index had been down as much as 1.5% on Friday.

That left the market up 1.5% for the week following solid gains over the past two days as it braced for then absorbed the U.S. Federal Reserve's first rate increase in years. Still, the ASX 200 is down 5.6% in 2015.

A recovery in the heavily-weighted financial sector helped turn the market around for the day and led gains in recent days. That helped offset further weakness in the resources sector as oil prices continued to slump.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac led the big banks higher, gaining 1.1% and 0.3%, respectively. That helped counter a 0.6% fall in National Australia Bank and a 0.25% dip for Australia & New Zealand Banking Group.

Among energy shares, Woodside Petroleum lost 0.2%, Oil Search fell 1.3% and Santos shed 0.6%.

BHP Billiton was 0.9% lower, and fellow miners South32 and Rio Tinto dropped 1.4% and 2.1%, respectively, as the materials sector showed the sharpest retreat Friday.

For the day, 2.63 billion shares were traded worth 8.73 billion Australian dollars (US$6.22 billion), Commonwealth Securities said.

Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 18, 2015 01:52 ET (06:52 GMT)

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