Banks push market higher

The Australian sharemarket resumed its record-setting run yesterday, led by the major banks.
CMC Markets analyst David Land said investors had switched attention from resources stocks to the finance sector.
"There was a bit of a change of pace in the market today, with more focus falling on the finance sector than recently," he said.
"For many traders who are intently focused on resources at the moment, they need big price swings in the underlying commodities to make a day of it."
Mr Land said uranium stocks were starting to attract some attention after being on the back-burner in recent times.
The benchmark ASX 200 was up 21.4 points at 4838.1, surpassing the previous record of 4831.5 set on Monday. The All Ordinaries climbed 19.4 points to 4781.1, beating the prior closing high of 4775.8, also set on Monday.
Both indices also reached new intra-day highs.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the March share price index contract gained 21 points to 4827, on a volume of 11,110.
In the banking sector, the gains included National Australia Bank, up 12c to $32.65, Commonwealth, up 59c to $43.87, ANZ, up 3c to $24.43, and Westpac, up 19c to $23.24.
Among resources stocks, global miner BHP Billiton added 3c to $23.88 and Rio Tinto put on 20c to $69.35. Alumina dipped 10c to $7.40.
Oil and gas producer Woodside gained 22c to $40.90 and Santos was steady at $12.50.
Australian uranium explorer Hindmarsh Resources surged 13c to 68c after Canadian-listed Mega Uranium launched a $19.7 million friendly takeover bid.
Other uranium stocks to gain were Paladin Resources, which climbed 8c to $2.27, and Energy Resources of Australia, up 63c to $11.50.
Among the gold stocks, Newmont picked up 5c to $7.81, Newcrest dropped 50c to $25.60 and Lihir edged up 3c to $2.37.
The price of gold in Sydney was $US543.85 a fine ounce, down $US2.275 on Tuesday's close.
In the retail sector, Harvey Norman was steady at $3 after posting a 10.2 per cent first-half rise in sales to $2.3 billion. Coles Myer gained 9c to $10.73 while supermarket rival Woolworths was 8c higher at $16.92.
Telstra slipped 1c to $3.99 and Optus-owner Singapore Telecommunications dipped 2c to $2.09.
In the media sector, News Corp was 31c better off at $22.75, while its non-voting stock was up 40c at $21.55. PBL eased 7c to $16.83 and John Fairfax gave up 2c to $4.09.
Among other stocks, ABC Learning added 1c to $7.36 as it became the world's biggest publicly listed child-care operator after buying US Learning Care Group for nearly $213 million.
The top traded stock by volume was IT provider Multiemedia, with 63.4 million shares worth $846,200 changing hands. Multiemedia was up 0.2c to 1.4c.
National turnover was 1.1 billion shares worth $3.44 billion, with 589 stocks up, 462 down and 313 unchanged.
In the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average eased 0.32 points to 11,011.58