Australian stocks have fallen heavily after resuming trade after the Australia Day public holiday, due to a recent sell off on Wall Street.

Wall Street’s Dow Jones Industrial Average took a near two per cent slide on Friday night and a further, albeit smaller, selloff on Monday night.

All sectors of the local market showed weakness at the start of trading on Tuesday, Morgans senior private client adviser Bill Chatterton said.

“It’s going to be across the board, you don’t have a move in the Dow like that without having a response across our market,” he said.

The big four banks were more than one per cent lower, with Westpac down 38 cents to $30.74, ANZ down 47 cents to $30.17, Commonwealth Bank down 87 cents to $73.87, and National Australia Bank was 37 cents weaker at $33.45.

Among the resources stocks, BHP Billiton was down 70 cents, or nearly two per cent, at $36.34, while Rio Tinto had dropped $1.10 to $64.06 and iron ore miner Fortescue had lost eight cents to $5.15.

Telstra was four cents lower at $5.11.

One of the few bright spots was retailer JB Hi-Fi, which was up $1.57, or almost nine per cent, at $19.86, after saying sales and profit rose in the first half of the financial year.

Oil Search was also higher, up 15 cents, or nearly two per cent, on increased production and revenue.

KEY FACTS

* At 1025 AEDT on Tuesday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 63.4 points, or 1.21 per cent, at 5,177.5 points.

* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 63.2 points, or 1.2 per cent, at 5,191.1 points.

* The March share price index futures contract was 27 points lower at 5,130 points, with 11,193 contracts traded.

* National turnover was 517 million securities worth $700 million.