The Australian share market has opened strongly amid an easing of US-Chinese trade tensions after the announcement of a partial deal at the end of last week.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 65.8 points, or 1.0 per cent, to 6,672.6 points at 1030 AEDT on Monday, while the broader All Ordinaries was up 66.1 points, or 0.98 per cent, to 6,788.0 points.
Energy shares led gains after the first half hour of trading, leaping ahead by 2.24 per cent, while the tech sector added 1.88 per cent.
Santos surged by 5.38 per cent after the oil and gas producer said it was buying the northern Australian business of ConocoPhillips.
Woodside Petroleum, Oil Search and Beach Energy were also up by between 1.79 per cent and 2.32 per cent after an increase in crude prices.
Tech favourites Afterpay, Appen, Altium and Bravura rose between 2.27 per cent and 2.99 per cent.
The financial sector advanced more than 1.0 per cent as investors appeared unperturbed by the news that the competition watchdog would investigate why the major lenders had not passed on the full extent of the central bank’s rate cuts to mortgage customers.
The big four banks were higher, with ANZ up 1.20 per cent to $27.82, Commonwealth up 1.0 per cent to $79.56, NAB up 0.94 per cent to $28.465 and Westpac up 0.90 per cent to $29.01.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank was up 0.58 per cent, Bank of Queensland was up 1.25 per cent and Macquarie Group was up 1.28 per cent.
Mining giant BHP was up 2.12 per cent to $36.58, Rio Tinto was up 2.69 per cent to $92.39 and Fortescue Metals was up 1.70 per cent to $8.96.
US President Donald Trump said after talks with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He that the two countries had reached a “phase-one” trade agreement focused on intellectual property, financial services and agricultural purchases.
On Wall Street on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 1.21 per cent, the S&P 500 was up 1.09 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 1.34 per cent.
The Aussie dollar is buying 67.93 US cents from 67.76 US cents on Friday.
AAP
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