The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index closed by being down 43.4 points, or 0.79 percent at 5,464 points. The broader All Ordinaries index was down 37.9 points, or 0.68 percent at 5,532 points.
The market stayed flat after falling when trading opened in the day, apart from a brief uptick just after noon.
“We saw weakness in the oil market and that made the energy sector weak from the outset in the Australian market and so they helped to drag us down,” CMC Markets chief market analyst Ric Spooner told Xinhua.
“The second thing I think though was that we just have seen generally in the Asian time zone a little bit of a reversal of some of the themes that we’ve seen since the U.S. election, when we saw the U.S. dollar sold, gold bought and a bit of weakness on stocks and I think that played through into our market.
“It very much remains to be seen whether that move that started in Asia actually does continue or not but certainly that was the theme of the day here.”
On Monday, ANZ was down 1.31 percent, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia fell by 1.13 percent, the National Australia Bank dropped 1.34 percent and Westpac slipped 1.14 percent.
BHP Billiton fell 2.6 percent while rival Rio Tinto slipped 1.15 percent. Gold miner Newcrest bucked the trend and edged up 0.1 percent.
Oil Search fell 3.03 percent, Santos dropped 2.63 percent and Woodside Petroleum was down 2.28 percent.
Wesfarmers edged down 0.12 percent and rival Woolworths dropped 1.06 percent.
Qantas was lower by 0.93 percent while telecom giant Telstra was up 0.2 percent. Enditem
Source: Xinhua/NewsGhana.com.gh
