Australia shares eke out modest gains pressured by cenbank's hawkish stance
Australia benchmark adds 0.9% over the week
Gains in healthcare, energy offset by miners
NZ shares lose 1.5% over the week
Updates to close
By Prerna Bedi
June 21 (Reuters) -Australian shares closed higher on Friday on broad-based gains, capped by investors worrying over slim chances of interest rates easing soon after the country's central bank delivered hawkish comments on inflation earlier in the week.
The S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO rose 0.3% to 7,796 points at the close of trade, logging weekly gains of 0.9%.
The Reserve Bank of Australia's warning, in which it said it remained vigilant over upside risks to inflation, has pushed back rate cut expectations to later in the year, with some even expecting the next move could be a rate hike. 0#RBAWATCH
"We think a hike remains unlikely given the ongoing easing in the labour market and the slow pace of activity growth. Still, we can't rule out a post-second-quarter inflation rate hike entirely," analysts at ANZ wrote.
On the bourse, gains in the healthcare .AXHJ and energy .AXEJ stocks were partially offset by weakness in miners .AXMM as iron ore prices remained subdued on demand concerns in top consumer China.
The healthcare index ended 1% higher and was the top boost to the benchmark, with biotech giant CSL Ltd CSL.AX advancing 0.8%, while energy stocks were up 1.1%.
Capping the gains were the miners .AXMM, weighed largely by iron ore miner Fortescue FMG.AX. The stock which fell more than 1% and ended the week nearly 7% lower.
Mathan Somasundaram, CEO of Deep Data Analytics said the top three stocks in Australia - BHP Group BHP.AX, Commonwealth Bank of Australia CBA.AX, and CSL Ltd CSL.AX - accounted for roughly 20% of the index, and added that losses in BHP were being covered up by the other two stocks.
"Passive money is controlling the market and the underperformance in BHP is being covered up by pushing CBA and CSL higher."
BHP has lost around 15% so far this year - putting it on track for its worst year since 2015, if the trend holds - while CBA and CSL have advanced 14% and 2.2%, respectively.
In New Zealand, the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index .NZ50 closed 0.8% lower at 11,682.39 points, ending the week 1.5% in the red.
Reporting by Prerna Bedi in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman
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