WBC Westpac Banking Corp

   By Robb M. Stewart 
 

MELBOURNE, Australia--An end-of-year rally by Australian shares continued for a ninth straight session Wednesday, lifting the market to a two-month high as investor confidence was buoyed by a recovery in oil prices.

The market opened strongly in the wake of overnight strength on Wall Street on Tuesday, as investors there bought some of the year's biggest decliners, and as crude-oil and natural-gas prices rallied.

In the last full trading day of the year, the S&P/ASX 200 finished 52.6 points, or 1%, higher at 5319.9. The index has now climbed 6.9% from a year-low that it hit mid-December, narrowing the drop in 2015 to 1.7%, after gains the previous three years.

"The stock market continues to push higher on thin volume and with no need for a macro catalyst," said Ric Spooner, chief market strategist at CMC Markets. "At the moment, the market is all about sentiment and perceived value."

Still, he cautioned the value that investors were hunting in the market was becoming less obvious after recent gains.

The basket of energy shares helped drive the day's push higher, rising 1.4%, supported by gains in the heavily-weighted financial sector. The mining-heavy materials subindex lagged, edging up 0.2% amid broad gains.

Still, the energy sector remains down 30% this year, while the materials segment is 19% lower.

For the day, Woodside Petroleum rose 1.4%, Oil Search added 1.8% and Origin Energy advanced 1.7%. Smaller Beach Energy and Drillsearch Energy were up 5.2% and 5.9%, respectively.

The four largest banks, sought for their relatively strong dividend yield, were all more than 1% higher, led by a 1.9% rise in Westpac.

Among mining stocks, BHP Billiton slipped 0.1% to find itself down 32% in 2015. Rio Tinto was little changed Wednesday but is down 23% this year, while South32 shed 0.5% and gold producer Newcrest Mining fell 1.5% for the day.

Angus Nicholson, a market analyst at IG, said that while some in the market were looking for the ASX 200 to end the year above 5411, the level where it began 2015, that appeared to be a stretch. "However, a close above 5350 would be very respectable and see the index end the year at its highest level since Aug. 19, hopefully putting the sub-5000 performances well behind it," Mr. Nicholson said.

The ASX 200 will close early ahead of the New Year's public holiday Friday.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 30, 2015 00:51 ET (05:51 GMT)

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