AUSTRALIAN shares rose slightly in quiet trading yesterday after disappointing US non-farm payrolls data fuelled doubts about whether the world's No 1 economy would be strong enough for the US Federal Reserve to consider slowing the pace of its money printing and bond buying program this year.
Investors focused on offshore developments such as the US employment data, a fall in Chinese shares and further strength in Japanese stocks.
The Tokyo market surged by 3.5 per cent during the trading day as a further drop in the yen ignited the buying of Japanese shares.
EL&C Baillieu Stockbroking director Richard Morrow said the strength of the Japanese market and investor interest in commodities supported the local market.
"A bit of that is rubbing off on to us today in the absence of anything enormously bearish coming from the northern hemisphere," Mr Morrow said.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.3 per cent higher at 4905.5 after a choppy day's trade between 4889.6 and 4914.0. Trading volume shrank to $3.9 billion from $4.7bn on Friday, when the index fell 0.5 per cent.
