Australian shares settled higher on Monday, with tech stocks ending at a record peak while a significant slowdown in fresh daily coronavirus cases fuelled hopes that a deadly second wave may be on the wane.
The country's second-most populous state of Victoria reported its smallest daily rise in fresh COVID-19 cases in seven weeks following strict lockdown curbs.
The S&P/ASX 200 index <.AXJO> rose 0.3% to 6,129.60, snapping two straight sessions of losses.
However, investor optimism was dulled to a degree by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's forecast that effective unemployment in Australia would breach 13% by the end of September amid lockdowns.
"Though real unemployment rates are likely a lot higher, government payments, including JobKeeper and JobSeeker, have kept people employed but can't go on forever," said Simon Herrmann, an equity analyst at Wise-Owl.com.
"There are significant risks to the real economy but the stock-market party continues as if nothing has happened, that can't be healthy in the long run."
Technology stocks <.AXIJ> jumped 3.2%, tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite's <.IXIC> record finish on Friday. [.N]
Afterpay <APT.AX>, the biggest stock on the sub-index, advanced 4.8% after the buy-now-pay later firm said it would acquire Spain-based Pagantis and expand into Europe.
Heavyweight miners <.AXMM> tacked on 0.6%, with Fortescue Metals Group <FMG.AX> and BHP Group <BHP.AX> adding 3.2% and 0.6%, respectively.
Top lender Commonwealth Bank of Australia <CBA.AX> eased 1%, making it the biggest loser among financials <.AXFJ>. The rest of the "Big Four" banks also ended lower.
New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index <.NZ50> climbed 0.7% to finish the session at 11,921.07.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extended a coronavirus lockdown in Auckland until the end of the week in a bid to enable the country to gradually rollback its scale of emergency restrictions.
(Reporting by Arpit Nayak in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
