Australian Shares Jump on US Tech Rally; Vonex Shares Reach 52-Week High Following Sweetened Bid from MaxoTel

Australian shares jumped on Thursday's close as a higher-than-expected US inflation read was overshadowed by a rally in the shares of technology firms.

The S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.1% or 87.8 points to close at 8,075.70.

Shares of technology firms rallied following news that the US government may allow Nvidia to export chips to Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported.

The news overshadowed the US consumer price index read for August, which rose 0.3% compared with analyst's consensus of 0.2%, the report added.

"We wanted answers to help settle the 25bp vs 50bp Fed rate cut debate on Friday, but now it seems the market has made its own mind up," said Pepperstone's Head of Research Chris Weston.

On the domestic front, the Melbourne Institute said that Australia's expected inflation rate fell by 0.1 percentage point in September to 4.4%, with total pay now expected to grow by 1.4% over the next 12 months.

In corporate news, telecommunications firm Vonex's (ASX:VN8) shares jumped 8% at market close and earlier hit a fresh 52-week high following an increase in Maxotel's takeover bid to AU$0.0419 per share from AU$0.0375 under a revised scheme implementation deed.

Shares of GTI Energy (ASX:GTR) surged 33% at market close after the mining firm validated extensions to known uranium mineralization from an ongoing resource estimate drill program at the Lo Herma uranium project in Wyoming.

IGO (ASX:IGO) said that the lithium industry needs to scale up by at least three times its current footprint by 2035, or 80 new unfunded projects, with an average production of 20,000 tonnes per annum of lithium concentrates to support the maturing need of the mineral in the world market. Its shares finished 6% higher.