Gold miners, banks keep Australian shares afloat in holiday-thinned week

By Sameer Manekar and Nichiket Sunil

April 22 (Reuters) - Australian shares ended little changed on Tuesday as volumes remained thin in a holiday-truncated week and a rush to safer assets like banks and gold miners offset a sell-off in tariff-exposed sectors such as technology and energy.

The S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO slipped marginally to finish at 7,816.70 points. Volumes were at their lowest in more than three weeks as trade resumed after a four-day weekend. Markets will be closed again on Friday.

An overnight flight from U.S. assets, sparked by President Donald Trump's relentless criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Powell, spilled into Australia's tech stocks .AXIJ that broadly tracks the Nasdaq index .IXIC.

But a rush to gold miners .AXGD and banks .AXFJ kept the benchmark afloat.

"The (ASX) market is actually outperforming the U.S. as the gold producers are holding the market up," said Jessica Amir, a market strategist at moomoo, predicting the case for gold to further solidify on rising demand.

Gold miners .AXGD surged nearly 3% to finish at a record high as bullion continued to scale new peaks. The sub-index clocked its seventh straight day of gains.

Northern Star Resources NST.AX and Evolution Mining EVN.AX jumped 3% and 4.9%, respectively, to finish at all-time highs.

The financials sub-index .AXFJ, dominated by the "Big Four" banks, jumped over 1% to a near seven-week high. Top lender Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) CBA.AX surged 4.2% to finish at its all-time high of A$168.00 per share.

"The Australian banks are seen as a safe haven. We're seeing quite a lot of buying in the CBA and it's up quite strongly against the market," said Jun Bei Liu, portfolio manager at TenCap, an investment management firm.

Tech stocks .AXIJ fell to a near two-week low, while the energy sector .AXEJ declined 1.9% on weak oil prices.

The mining .AXMM and consumer staple stocks .AXSJ gained slightly, while healthcare .AXHJ and real estate .AXRE fell up to 1%.

Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index .NZ50 lost 2.3% to finish at 11,836.69 points.