Australian stocks managed to avoid some of the heavy falls experienced on Wall Street, but the local sharemarket still finished 0.8 per cent lower.

At the close of trade on Wednesday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 37.3 points, or 0.82 per cent, at 4,505.8, while the broader All Ordinaries index had lost 37.4 points, or 0.82 per cent, to 4,530.6.

On the ASX 24, the December share price index futures contract was 35 points lower at 4,497 with 27,201 contracts traded.

The Dow tumbled 1.82 per cent – its worst one-day fall since June – while the S&P500 slid 1.44 per cent and the NASDAQ declined 0.88 per cent.

City Index Australia Chief Market analyst Peter Esho said Australian stocks had shown more resilience than US stocks.

“The falls in the US had been specific to earnings there,” Mr Esho said.

“Our market has been underperforming for a while. We’re still underperforming the US market by a fair bit.”

He said the Australian sharemarket had not experienced the same strong run as the US.

“That perhaps explains why the sell off wasn’t as savage.”

In the US, weak reports and guidance from DuPont, United Technologies, UPS, Xerox, Radio Shack and 3M reinforced views that the US corporate earnings boom is stalling, sending buyers toward the doors.

Around a third of the nation’s top 500 companies release their earnings results this week.

Locally, every sector was in negative territory at the open.

Among resources stocks, BHP Billiton was 48 cents, or 1.38 per cent, weaker at $34.31 while Rio Tinto had shed 56 cents, or 0.97 per cent, to $57.26.

Among the major banks, ANZ had lost 11 cents to $25.60, National Australia Bank had dipped 10 cents to $25.90, and Westpac had fallen 16 cents to $25.27, Commonwealth Bank fell two cents to $57.08.

National turnover was 1.4 billion stocks, worth $3.2 billion, with 352 stocks up, 617 down and 320 unchanged.