Miners lead bourse to firmer ground

The Australian stockmarket shrugged off a mixed lead from overseas to close firmly higher with big mining and banking stocks leading the charge.
The local market had performed well with little direction from overseas, Ausbil Dexia equities director Paul Xiradis said.
"We saw a good bounce back in a lot of the stocks that have been pretty weak of late.
"[Tuesday] was weak for no real reason so there was a bit of catch-up from that unwarranted weakness, but even so the market put in a pretty good performance."
The ASX200 closed up 57.5 points at 4918.9 and the All Ordinaries climbed 53.6 points to 4884.4.
The September share price index contract finished 32 points higher at 4894 on the Sydney Futures Exchange, on volume of 13,695.
The big miners got a boost after winning a 19 per cent price rise for the iron ore they sell to China. BHP Billiton raced up 82c to $26.98 while Rio Tinto rose $1.80 to $75.25.
The big banks moved ahead, with National Australia Bank rising 67c to $34.00, Commonwealth Bank up 69c to $42.09, Westpac climbing 20c to $22.05 and ANZ up 11c to $25.40.
Among media stocks, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp rose 35c to $27.40 and the non-voting stock put on 36c to $25.86.
Seven Network shot up 33c to $8.18 after saying it had sold its interests in Melbourne's Telstra Dome for about $330 million.
Ten Network lost 3c to $2.81 after saying third-quarter earnings would be cut in half.
Qantas dived 15c to $3.03 after saying profits would fall by more than a quarter in 2005-06 as its fuel bill rose.
Village Roadshow eased 1c to $2.38 as it paid out $33.5 million to dispose of its remaining British cinema interests.
Retailer Woolworths climbed 26c to $18.98 while rival Coles Myer rose 6c to $11.42.
Oil and gas stocks were stronger with Santos up 29c to $11.44 and Woodside rising 39c to $41.34.
CSL was up 87c to $50.90 as the blood products and vaccine maker reaffirmed its 2005-06 earnings guidance.
The spot price of gold in Sydney climbed $US6.20 from the previous night's close to be $US578.00 per fine ounce.
Gold stocks rose, with Newcrest Mining gaining 30c to $19.10, Lihir Gold piling on 8c to reach $2.75 and Kingsgate Consolidated up 10c to $4.50.
The top traded stock was IC2 Global, with 79.5 million shares worth $158,600 changing hands. Its share price was steady at 0.2c.
Market turnover was 1.04 billion shares worth $3.81 billion: 572 stocks rose, 525 fell and 357 were unchanged.