Trading on the local market has been relatively flat this week and the pattern persisted early in the day amid continued concerns about political unrest in Spain and Greece.

At 8.30am (AEST) the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index fell to an intraday low of 4337 points.

However, the market soon started to pick up pace and closed 0.5% or 22.6 points higher to 4384.2 as investor sentiment rose on the back of Chinese stimulus rumours.

Locally, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released job vacancy figures, revealing there were 176,200 job vacancies in August, representing a drop of 0.4% from May 2012.

Among the sectors, health care fared the best, gaining 1.2% while basic materials managed a 1% gain.

It was a slightly better day for the miners, with BHP Billiton narrowing its losses.

BHP fell 0.6% to $A33.02 and Rio Tinto dropped 1.3% to $53.59.

Fortescue Metals Group dipped 0.3% to $3.52 while shares in magnetite producer Grange Resources dropped 5.4% to 26.5c.

Better performing stocks included Atlas Iron, which firmed 2.5% to $1.45 while Newcrest Mining gained 1.8% to $28.20.

Lynas Corporation managed to claw back some of its losses made yesterday, closing up 6% to 80c.

On the junior front, Noble Mineral Resources was a standout, soaring 37.5% to 16.5c after announcing Zhongrun Group would take a 41.5% stake in the company through an $85 million investment.

Meanwhile, shares in resources company TNG had a good run, closing up 27.3% to 9.8c after releasing pleasing rock chip samples from its Mount Hardy copper project in the Northern Territory.

Greenland Minerals and Energy went into a trading halt pending the release of a capital raising.

Killara Resources also requested a halt as did Rumble Resources, also citing the imminent release of a capital raising.

The Australian dollar was trading slightly higher at $US1.041.