Australian stocks rose on Friday, reversing a sell-off the day before, as investors took cues from Wall Street's rally after the Fed meeting.
The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 72.108 points to close at 5,597, up 1.3 per cent from a day earlier.
The benchmark had lost 1.26 per cent on Thursday, its biggest daily percentage loss in two weeks.
On the week, the benchmark index was up 0.93 per cent for its second week of gains.
New Zealand’s benchmark NZX 50 index rose 0.56 per cent or 32.056 points to finish the session at 5,781.761.
“There’s a Friday rally, largely brought on by the fact that we’ve had significant gains out of the US and I think the market is feeling fairly stable with what the Fed are doing over the next six months or so,’’ said Kara Ordway, an analyst at City Index.
After its two-day meeting, the Fed had said on Wednesday that the US economy was probably strong enough to support an interest rate increase by the end of the year. Financials led the gains with all major banking stocks up. Macquarie rose 2.3 per cent and AMP was up 1.6 per cent.