The sharemarket climbed to a five-week high yesterday as falling bond yields fuelled demand for high-yield stocks, offsetting the negative effect on miners of disappointing Chinese manufacturing data.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 closed up 1 per cent at 5016.2 after rising to 5036.6. It was the first three-day rise for the index since early February.
Trading value rose to $4.8 billion, above the 20-day moving average of $4.1bn.
The Australian dollar fell to its lowest level in six weeks on news that growth in Chinese manufacturing was weaker than expected in April. At 5pm AEST, the dollar was trading at $US1.0233, down US0.5c.
Woodside Petroleum shares soared 9.7 per cent after the company said it would start returning 80 per cent of underlying net profit to shareholders as dividends. It had been paying 50 per cent.
The company also declared a special dividend of US63c to be paid on May 29.
