Up two days in a row. Is it a trend?

The sharemarket closed higher for the second day in a row as a strong US lead helped blue-chip stocks make back some of the ground lost in the recent sell-off.
The ASX 200 broke back through the 5000-point barrier, shooting up 91.9 points, or 1.9 per cent, to 5010.8, while the All Ordinaries index climbed 83.7 points, or 1.7 per cent, to 4968.1.
Aequs Securities institutional dealer Ric Klusman said most of the buying had been in the big mining and banking stocks which had been sold down over the past month.
"There have been a lot of buy orders but only in the top 20 stocks, everything else seems to have been left alone," he said.
Trading was boosted by a bullish performance on Wednesday on Wall Street, where some solid earnings figures helped reassure investors about corporate profit growth. The Dow Jones was up 104.62 points to 11,079.46
An increase in commodity prices helped catapult the big mining stocks higher with BHP Billiton rising $1.02 to $28, Rio Tinto jumping $2.50 to $77.75 and Zinifex up 26c to $9.43.
The banks also put in a storming performance with ANZ surging 85c to $26.25, the Commonwealth soaring $1.20 to $43.29, NAB rising 81c to $34.81 and Westpac climbing 46c to $22.51.
News Corp fell 65c to $26.75 and the non-voters slipped 45c to $25.41 as the global media group appointed Spain's former prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, to its board of directors.
PBL rose 34c to $17.90, Ten jumped 9c to $2.90, Seven rose 7c to $8.25 and John Fairfax was steady at $3.70.
Tattersall's fell 2c to $2.81 as the gambling firm said it was sticking with its proposed merger with UNiTAB, which climbed 15c to $14.95 as rival bidder Tabcorp rose 13c to $15.13.
Qantas fell 3c to $3 as the market digested the profit downgrade issued by the airline on Wednesday.
The airline said it would receive compensation from French manufacturer Airbus for the late delivery of 12 A380 planes.
Mayne Pharma rose 8c to $2.60 after it said it had acquired the North American rights to a leukaemia treatment and a medical surface cleaner for a maximum of $US34 million ($46 million).
Retail Food Group, which owns Donut King's Australian operations, had a subdued debut, opening at 96c, down on the $1 issue price, and closing at 91.5c. The franchisor said it was on the acquisition trail in an industry it said was due for consolidation.
Asian investors Affinity Equity Partners has taken a major stake in Colorado Group, prompting speculation of a takeover and pushing the clothing retailer's shares up 49c to $4.29.
Other retailers were stronger, with Woolworths up 46c to $19.44 while Coles Myer climbed 6c to $11.48. Miller's Retail was up 1c at $1.53.
Telstra rose a whole 1c to $3.70 after it released three new homeline pricing plans as part of its new fixed-line strategy.
Newcrest Mining leapt $1 to $20.10, PNG miner Lihir Gold rose 8c to $2.83 and Thai-focused miner Kingsgate Consolidated grew 17c to $4.67.
The top traded stock by volume was Lion Energy with 41.30 million shares worth $208,490 changing hands. The price closed unchanged at 0.5c.