* Gold sub-index rises nearly 3% on firm bullion
* Mining sub-index hits its highest since January
* Napier Port down on dismal qtrly trade volumes
By Arundhati Dutta
July 15 (Reuters) - Australian shares rose on Wednesday as investors looked past a spike in COVID-19 cases to overnight gains on Wall Street, with gold stocks leading the charge on firm bullion prices.
The S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO gained 1.2% to 6,012.8 by 1238 GMT, bouncing back from Tuesday's 0.6% fall, even as Australia tightened restrictions on movement to contain a fresh outbreak of COVID-19 that has pushed its case tally beyond 10,000. the three major indexes on Wall Street jumped between 0.9% and 2.1%, despite a record daily rise in COVID-19 deaths in three Southern (NYSE:SO) U.S. states. .N
Lifting investor sentiment, the United Kingdom said on Tuesday the first round of trade talks with Australia had been "productive". major sectors rose for the day, with the gold sub-index .AXGD adding about 3%. Newcrest Mining NCM.AX , the country's biggest listed gold miner, gained up to 3.5%.
The energy sub-index .AXEJ climbed as much as 2.8% on firm oil prices. O/R
Shares of Woodside Petroleum WPL.AX fell 1.4% after the country's biggest independent gas producer posted a 29% sequential drop in quarterly revenue. Origin Energy ORG.AX said it would book full-year impairments of about A$1.2 billion ($838.92 million) after tax due to a coronavirus-induced blow to oil and gas prices. mining sub-index .AXMM climbed 2.8% to its highest since January after iron one prices jumped on Tuesday. IRONORE/
Heavyweights BHP Group BHP.AX and Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) RIO.AX gained more than 2% each.
In New Zealand, the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index .NZ50 rose 0.7% to 11,570.8.
The top percentage gainer on the benchmark was Vista Group International Ltd VGL.NZ with a jump of 6.7%, while Napier Port Holdings Ltd NPH.NZ was one of the top losers after reporting dismal quarterly trade volumes. = 1.4304 Australian dollars)