A four-day run of gains ended on the Australian share market with investors spooked by Greece’s lack of a resolution with its creditors.
The June 30 deadline to avoid defaulting on a huge International Monetary Fund payment and possibly leaving the Eurozone looms large, with talks ongoing.
Australia was not as impacted by Greece as Europe, but the crisis was enough to affect the Asian region’s markets, said IG chief market strategist Chris Weston.
“It makes a lot of sense given the wide, differing stance between the EU creditors and the Greeks only days before a key deadline that people would take a bit of money off the table here,” he told AAP.
Every sector was weaker, with the biggest falls in industrials and IT stocks.
Among those, Computershare dropped 29 cents, or 2.3 per cent, to $12.18 and logistics giant Brambles gave up 34 cents, or 3.1 per cent, to $10.56.
Law firm Slater and Gordon suffered its worst share price slump in a day as UK authorities probed the accounts of the Quindell insurance group it recently bought a slice of.
The stock dived $1.07, or 17.5 per cent, to $5.06 on Thursday and is down from $8.07 in April.
Commonwealth Bank gained 10 cents to $87.29, National Australia Bank lost seven cents to $34.45, ANZ dumped 20 cents at $33.44 and Westpac reversed 36 cents to $33.31.
Miner BHP Billiton lost four cents to $28.51, Rio Tinto was down four cents at $55.63, and Fortescue Metals dipped eight cents to $2.12.
KEY FACTS
* At the close on Thursday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 54.1 points, or 0.95 per cent, at 5,632.7 points.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 52.8 points, or 0.93 per cent, at 5,619.9 points.
* The September share price index futures contract was 65 points lower at 5,564 points, with 24,865 contracts traded.
* National turnover was 2.1 billion securities worth $5.56 billion.
