Bourse gallops into virgin territory

The Australian sharemarket soared to record heights yesterday, spurred on by a booming banking sector while ignoring a fall on Wall Street overnight.

The ASX200 closed 57.4 points higher at 5327.2, beating the previous record of 5283.9 set on April 19. It also hit a fresh intra-day high of 5335.3.

The All Ordinaries index shot into new territory with a gain of 54.4 points to 5272.1, surpassing the previous record of 5233.2, also set on April 19, as well as posting a new intra-day high of 5277.9.

At the end of trading on the Sydney Futures Exchange, the June share price index contract gained 57 points to 5335 on a volume of 19,470.

A senior client adviser at Austock Brokers, Michael Heffernan, said the consumer price index rise of 0.9 per cent in the March quarter helped the financial institutions and showed the economy could adjust to different global pressures.

"The CPI figure was probably at the higher end of the scale but it showed the economy can manage to adjust to all the different gyrations going on around the world and still deliver a soundly growing economy with reasonably low inflation," Mr Heffernan said.

National Australia Bank led the way with an improvement of 67c, or 1.8 per cent, to $37.66, followed by Westpac, up 33c to $24.93. The Commonwealth grew 49c to $46.88 and ANZ 25c to $27.93.

BHP Billiton, with third-quarter iron production down 5 per cent following the series of cyclones that lashed Western Australia, managed a 1c rise to $31.02. Rio Tinto picked up 15c to $82.70.

In the energy stocks, Woodside gained 24c to $48.25, Beach hit a new high of $1.50, up 3c, as did its associate, Steve Koroknay's ambitious Anzon, up 4c at $1.45.

Alinta and The Australian Gas Light Co both surged after signing a binding agreement to merge their respective infrastructure businesses. Alinta put on 66c to $11.67 while AGL climbed 73c to $19.19.

The media sector was mostly higher, with News Corp up 10c to $23.84 and its non-voting scrip 12c stronger at $22.38.

Fairfax advanced 7c to $3.99 but Publishing & Broadcasting slipped 1c to $18.84.

Telstra, the most traded stock with 59.94 million shares changing hands for a total value of $228 million, improved 6c to $3.82. Optus owner Singapore Telecom firmed 1c to $2.31.

The price of gold in Sydney was $US632.30 per fine ounce, down $US1.95 on Monday's local close.

Among goldminers, Newcrest was 77c richer at $22.79, Newmont rose 6c to $7.70 and Lihir Gold was up 12c at $3.27.

Retailers improved despite petrol breaking through $1.40 per litre yesterday.

Coles Myer rose 10c to $10.84 and rival supermarket chain Woolworths lifted 18c to $18.98.

Harvey Norman put on 10c to $3.83.

On Wall Street on Tuesday, stocks had ended lower amid fears of rising interest rates, a sell-off in the energy sector including Exxon and a drop in the shares of Caterpillar.