Holidays and lack of leads pulls market lower
The Australian sharemarket opened higher, however lower commodity prices and lack of new leads were compounded by investors and fund managers leaving for Christmas summer holidays.
Regional Asian markets were mixed with Hong Kong higher and the Japanese market was lower.
The S&P/ASX200 was trading down 1.6%, to 3556.9 points.
Momentum in banks is broken
ANZ Bank (ASX:ANZ) gained 21 cents at $14.85, Commonwealth Bank (ASX:CBA) was down 13 cents, or 0.47%, at $27.67, NAB (ASX:NAB) lost 18 cents, or 0.9%, to $19.82 and Westpac (ASX:WBC) fell 46 cents, or 2.66%, at $16.85.
Macquarie Group (ASXMQG) was down 73 cents, or 2.5% to $27.84 and Babcock & Brown (ASX:BNB)lost 1 cent, or 6.2%, to 15 cents.
Miners lose ground
BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP)was down four cents to $29.88, Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) was down $1.07, or 2.74%, at $37.94 and Fortescue Metals (ASX:FMG) lost 41 cents, or 18.98% lower, to $1.75 on turnover of 15 million shares traded.
Gold stocks were slightly lower, as Lihir Gold (ASX:LGL) gave up 1 cent, to $2.79 and Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM) was hammered losing $2.05, or 6.1%, to $31.44.
Oil stocks were mixed, Santos (ASX:STO) was down 4.1% to $13.71 and Woodside Petroleum (ASX:WPL) was up 14 cents, to $32.60.
Harvey Norman (ASX:HVN) was down 11 cents, or 4.5%, to $2.35 and David Jones (ASX:DJS) lost 7 cents, or 2.3%, to $2.94.
The Australian dollar lost ground to trade up at 68.21 US cents.
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