The Australian share market is trading flat, though marked by a plunge in the shares of insurer QBE.
Lonsec senior client adviser Michael Heffernan said the local bourse was “as flat as a tack”.
He said overseas leads had been okay, but a profit downgrade from QBE had weighed upon sentiment.
“It (the QBE downgrade) went down like a lead balloon,” he said.
“Were it not for QBE, we’d be up higher.”
With little corporate and economic news to give much drive to the market, investors likely would look toward US quarterly gross domestic product figures and a US Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday to provide direction, he said.
At 1200 AEST, QBE was down $1.30, or 10.93 per cent, at $10.59 after the insurer flagged a slide in its first-half profit linked to problems with its Latin American operations.
Among the major banks, the Commonwealth Bank was up 34 cents at $82.34, ANZ had found four cents at $33.56, and National Australia Bank had firmed 14 cents to $34.83, but Westpac had dipped eight cents to $34.10.
In the resources sector, global miner BHP Billiton reversed eight cents to $39.02, but Rio Tinto strengthened 43 cents to $65.79, and Fortescue Metals added 8.5 up $4.835.
Oil and gas producer Beach Energy had eased five cents to $1.71 after it achieved a record 12 months of sales and oil production but flagged a slide in production in the coming year.
KEY FACTS
* On Tuesday at 1207 AEST, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 2.9 points, or 0.05 per cent, at 5,574.5 points.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 1.3 points, or 0.02 per cent, at 5,568.6 points.
* The September share price index futures contract was four points lower at 5,525 points, with 8,542 contracts traded.
* National turnover was 634.8 million shares worth $1.2 billion.
