The Australian stock market has opened higher, shrugging off a mixed lead from offshore trading on Friday.
At 12.15pm on Monday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 10 points, at 4,828.1 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index had risen 10.4 points, to 4,841.9 points.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the March share price index contract was 13 points higher at 4,832 points on volume of 11,915 contracts.
At 12.17pm there were about 17 stocks up for every 10 that had fallen, with local banks and resources stocks opening the trading week higher.
Local market participants received little direction from Wall Street on Friday night, when the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 0.1%, the S&P500 index ended 0.25 points lower and the Nasdaq finished down 0.8 points.
Crude oil prices were lower, while gold and silver futures contracts also closed weaker.
Copper managed a small gain.
RBS Morgans Brisbane private client adviser Trent Muller says the positive start to the trading day highlights the attraction of Australian stocks compared with offshore equity markets offshore.
"We are going to be dictated (to) by short-term movements in overseas equity markets, but on a fundamental basis we are drifting up because we are still fundamentally cheap on an earnings basis," Muller says.
"That's why you find, I suppose, our market is churning upwards, even though it is quite slowly."
