jan 4 reuters  australian shares rose on tuesday boosted by energy and mining stocks as investors took cues from a strong overnight session on wall street and brushed aside concerns around soaring covid19 infections and hospitalisations in the country the spasx 200 index axjo was up 09 at 7510 by 2338 gmt building on its near 2 gain over the past couple of weeks major indexes on wall street notched record closing highs on the first trading day of the year helped by gains in tesla inc tslao and banks that helped investors look past the country hitting a record of more than 37000 new cases on monday with sentiment aided by the australian government pinning hopes on the omicron variants mild impact to support its economic reopening plan read more energy stocks axej were among the top gainers on the australian bourse rising as much as 27 to notch their biggest oneday gain since nov 23 they tracked oil prices that gained overnight on hopes of demand recovery in 2022 major oil and gas explorer santos stoax added more than 2 while whitehaven coal whcax surged as much as 92 its biggest intraday gain since july 16 2021 miners axmm advanced as much as 14 to hit their highest in over three months lynas rare earths lycax and vulcan energy resources vulax jumped 64 and 58 respectively financials axfj also rose driven by gains in the socalled big four banks up between 08 and 11 firefinch ltd  which is not part of the asx 200 jumped 29 to hit a near 11year high after it approved a final investment decision for the goulamina lithium project in mali gold explorers axgd were among the few losers dropping 06 due to weaker bullion prices westgold resources wgxax fell 32 to top losses on the subindex the new zealand stock market is closed on tuesday for a public holiday reporting by harish sridharan in bengaluru editing by uttareshv