Strong performances from miners, the supermarkets and Telstra helped offset a bad day for banks as the Australian sharemarket finished modestly higher on Monday.
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The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 inched up 13.1 points, 0.2 per cent, to 5827.5, while the broader All Ordinaries rose 17 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 5815.9.
The day kicked off with a soft half-year profit result from Westpac Banking Corp which weighed on the banks all day. Westpac delivered a flat result with profit at $3.77 billion for the half, it also raised its dividend by 1¢ per share, when traditionally it has been at least double that. Westpac shares slumped 3.1 per cent to $35.60.
Among the other banks, Commonwealth Bank of Australia dropped 1 per cent to $88.01, National Australia Bank fell 1.4 per cent to $36.29 and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group lost 2.7 per cent to $33.24.
"The banks have really weighed on the market. People are nervous about capital requirements and that the regulator may crimp down on housing. I don't think the regulator is going to do anything too dramatic," Equity Trustees head of asset management Paul Kasian said.
"People might be a little bit concerned that the banks are in absolute value, a little pricey, but every now then people go 'well, relative value, where do I get income from, I'll go back to the banks'."
Holding the market in the black were good runs from blue chips outside the banks.
BHP Billiton jumped 2.6 per cent to $33.35, Rio Tinto gained 2.8 per cent to $59.90, Woolworths lifted 2.1 per cent to $29.60, Wesfarmers added 1.5 per cent to $44.30 and Telstra pushed 1.1 per cent higher to $6.31.
The market was also greeted with positive news from the ANZ job advertisements data which rebounded following a fall in April. Month-on-month job ads were up 2.3 per cent.
JBWere executive director Mike Kendall said the local market was going to bounce around thanks to economic data which is "notoriously volatile" while waiting for the budget and corporate earnings in August.
"6000 (points on the ASX 200) is more of a psychological thing. In the end it is just a number, but the market is running up on the back of interest rate cuts and economic data flow," Mr Kendall said.
"What you need to see, to see it push through with any conviction, is the earnings environment starting to pick up and reacting to the very accommodative policy settings we've got at the moment."
Mr Kendall said he thought the transition away from mining investment was happening but it would be slow.
As mining investment continues to fall, engineering group WorleyParsons announced that it will cut 2000 jobs and write down $125 million. The company blamed the sustained weakness in the price of iron ore, which has more than halved over the past 18 months. WorleyParsons shares finished Monday down 9.6 per cent to $10.35.
Elsewhere in corporate news, MYOB shares rose 6.6 per cent to $3.89 as the accounting software company began trading at midday following an initial public offering. The company had previously traded on the ASX and was bought and delisted by private equity groups.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs listed 15 companies which it believes will have an unusually weak second half of the current financial year. Myer Holdings, Seven Group and Brambles were among them, with their shares finishing Monday down 1.4 per cent to $1.32, up 2.2 per cent to $7.61 and up 1.5 per cent to $11.14 respectively.
"The pick-up in non-mining GDP [gross domestic product] growth has rolled over and the Reserve Bank's solitary rate cut appears to have done little to offset the negative impacts of falling commodity prices and a weak outlook for investment," Goldman Sachs analysts wrote.
