AU Evening Wrap: Bank Rally Lifts ASX; Liontown, Chalice Slump

$S&P/ASX 200(.XJO.AU)$ closed 0.75% higher at 7476.6, led by gains among financial and consumer stocks. The benchmark index spent the whole of Monday's session in the black, following a positive lead by U.S. equities at the end of last week. Its 1.8% gain across two sessions is its largest such lift in more than five weeks.

Banks $Westpac Banking Corp(WBC.AU)$, $National Australia Bank Ltd(NAB.AU)$, $CommBank(CBA.AU)$ and $ANZ Group Holdings Ltd(ANZ.AU)$ --which together comprise about 19% of the ASX 200 by market capitalization--added between 1.1% and 1.4% on Monday.

Retail stocks bounced after falling last week. $JB Hi Fi Ltd(JBH.AU)$, $Wesfarmers Ltd(WES.AU)$ and $Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd(HVN.AU)$ put on between 1.45% and 2.1%, the latter after it was upgraded to buy from neutral by UBS.

Nickel explorer $Chalice Mining Ltd(CHN.AU)$ sank 4.7% to $1.02 on plans to slash costs by 40 per cent because of weak market conditions.