Banks sold off in a volatile session but miners step up

The stockmarket pulled itself over the line to close in positive territory as investors sold off banking shares.
The market moved from strength to weakness and back again during the course of the day following a recovery in metals prices.
The ASX 200 took a tiny step up to close 0.1 points higher at 5217.5 points while the All Ordinaries gained 1.8 points to 5172.1 points.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange the June share price contract was down three points at 5214 on a volume of 17,609.
ABN Amro Morgan broker Lisa Sadgrove said it had been another volatile day on the market with high volumes of stock traded.
"We started off stronger and … we've dipped into negative territory again," she said.
"There was a lot of weakness in the banking sector today so it looks like they are pulling money out of banks and financials generally. But there was strength today in BHP and Rio."
BHP Billiton picked up 18c to $30.11 after completing a $US2 billion ($2.6 billion) share buyback while rival Rio Tinto fell 75c to $81.80.
The spot price of gold recovered the losses from earlier in the week, soaring $US31.10 an ounce on Tuesday's close to finish at $US707.60 an ounce yesterday.
The goldminers responded. Newcrest rose 20c to $23.21, Newmont 1c to $7.06 and Lihir 12c to $3.15.
Key energy stocks were mostly weaker despite a slight recovery in world oil prices overnight.
Woodside fell 12c to $44.00 and Santos 4c to $11.54 but Oil Search rose 6c to $4.24.
Some of the major banks took a tumble. Westpac fell 5c to $23.98, ANZ 41c to $27.00 and Commonwealth Bank 9c to $45.60. National Australia Bank bucked the trend, rising 10c to $37.00.
Other financial stocks fell too. St George Bank dropped 4c to $30.06 and Macquarie Bank 47c to $69.18.
Macquarie announced a $700 million capital raising to fund its international expansion plans.
Ten Network rose 5c to $3.17 after winning certain first-release rights to 20th Century Fox programs.
Other media stocks were mixed. PBL slipped 5c to $18.65, John Fairfax increased 5c to $3.93 and News Corp rose 19c to $25.88. The non-voting shares of News moved 31c higher to $24.66.
CSR fell 6c to $3.95 after posting a 4.4 per cent drop in annual net profit to $305 million.
Telstra picked up 3c to $3.82 while the owner of rival mobile network Optus, Singapore Telecommunications, moved 6c higher to $2.21.
Telstra was also the most traded stock on the market. More than 45.4 million of its shares swapped hands, worth a total of $173.83 million.
Market turnover reached 1.37 billion, collectively worth $5.44 billion, with 622 stocks moving up, 500 down and 334 unchanged.