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Market:	ASX 200
Sector:	Investments and Funds
EPIC:	XJO

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Australia Market Wrap

A summary of all the major stories on the Australian Stock Exchange

Local shares hammered again

Thursday, November 20, 2008 by Proactiveinvestors

Another poor lead from Wall Street, falling commodity prices, a disregard for the RBA Chairman’s speech and falling Asian markets, contributed to mining and industrial shares being sold off again. Worries about spiraling US troubles with Citi and the automaker’s continued to shake investor confidence.

In regional markets, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index was down 3.7% to 76.30 and the Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 4.3% to 7,915.63.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 4.2%, or 146.7 points, to 3352.

The materials, health and energy indexes were the hardest hit. The financials index recovered but was still 2.2% lower at noon. The materials sub-index was down 7%.

Miners hit hardest

BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) was down a whopping $2.10, or 9%, to $21.10, Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) was down $8.65, or 13.1%, to $57.25, Paladin Energy (ASX:PDN) lost a huge 36 cents, or 16.2%, to $1.85, Fortescue Metals (ASX:FMG) was down 6.5 cents, or 4.8%, to $1.29 and Oz Minerals (ASX:OZL) continued its bad run and was down 10.5 cents, or 16.7%, to 52.5 cents.

Gold miner Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM), which was up in early trading, was steady at $18.85, and Lihir Gold (ASX:LGL) as down 6.5 cents, or 3.8%, to $1.62.5.

Energy stocks were lower after oil prices fell overnight on higher inventories and lower global growth worries. Woodside Petroleum (ASX:WPL) was down $3.28, or 9.7%, to $30.65 and Santos (ASX:STO) was down 42 cents, or 3.3%, to $12.40.

Banks fall further

ANZ Bank (ASX:ANZ) was down 82 cents, or 5.9%, to $13.00, Commnwealth Bank (ASX:CBA) was down $1.62, or 5.2%, to $29.31, National Australia Bank (ASX:NAB) was down 86 cents, or 4.4%, to $18.82 and Westpac (ASX:WBC) lost 65 cents, or 4%, to $15.60.

Among the investment banks, Macquarie Group’s (ASX:MQG) star continued to shine as it gained $1.84, or 7.3%, to $27.00 and Babcock & Brown (ASX:BNB) shares were placed in a trading halt today over a dispute with a bank.

Telstra (ASX:TLS) was down 13 cents, or 3.2%, to $3.97 and SingTel (ASX:SGT), owner of its major rival Optus, was down 2 cents, or 0.8%, to $2.45.

The Australian dollar was weaker as a dive on Wall Street to five-year lows and was trading at 63.43 US cents, down 1.4 US cents from Wednesday's close. The Reserve Bank intervened to buy a record amount of dollars in October as turmoil in global markets sent the Aussie tumbling to five-year lows. The RBA bought a net $3.15 billion in Aussie dollars in October. That was the largest amount ever bought in a single month and the first purchase since 2001.

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