The Australian share market closed lower as worries about the Spanish economy and local consumer sentiment overtook a positive lead from Wall Street.
Standard & Poor’s lowered Spain’s long-term credit rating by two notches on Thursday, saying the country’s budget problems were likely to worsen as a result of the weak economy.
At 1615 AEST on Friday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was 13 points, or 0.3 per cent, lower at 4,362.1 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index was down 11.6 points, or 0.26 per cent, at 4,433.4 points.
On the ASX 24, the June share price index futures contract was 13 points lower at 4,369 points, with 23,868 contracts traded.
Australian Stock Report head of research Geoff Saffer said encouraging leads from United States markets were not enough to buoy the local market.
“The market started positively this morning but S&P’s downgrade of Spain put a dampener on proceedings,” Mr Saffer said.
“The market spent most of the day in mildly negative territory and trading was reasonably subdued.”
The utilities sector was the best performer, up 0.6 per cent while energy and mining stocks were among the weakest.
Meanwhile a profit downgrade from bellwether stock JB Hi-Fi added to the pessimism.
JB Hi-Fi blamed unsustainable discounting of televisions, computers and tablets for an expected fall in full-year profit, pushing the company’s shares down to a three-year low.
JB Hi-Fi shares closed 6.3 per cent lower at $10.04.
Elsewhere in the retail sector, Harvey Norman fell five cents to $2.02, and Myer fell seven cents to $2.32.
In the banking sector, Macquarie Group was 84 cents higher at $29.27 despite full year profit falling 24 per cent in the wake of significantly lower levels of investment activity.
In the resources sector, West Australian miner Atlas Iron was one cent higher at $2.88 after it announced plans to start three new mines in WA’s north Pilbara region.
Global miner BHP Billiton shed 21 cents to $35.89, and Rio Tinto dumped 73 cents at $65.43.
Telstra finished flat at $3.51 after the AFL, NRL and Telstra won an appeal in the Federal Court against an earlier ruling that allowed Optus customers to record and watch football matches on delay.
On Wall Street on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 113.90 points, or 0.87 per cent, to 13,204.62 points despite a series of uneven data and corporate earnings reports that included a big disappointment from oil giant ExxonMobil.
National turnover was 1.9 billion shares worth $5.35 billion, with 498 stocks up, 515 stocks down and 485 unchanged.
