The Australian share market has slipped one per cent ahead of Greece’s referendum on bailout conditions.
Local shares retreated after three consecutive days of gains as wary investors worry about the potential consequences of Sunday’s Greek vote.
IG market strategist Stan Shamu said investors were not interested in buying stocks heading into an uncertain weekend in Europe.
“No one wants too much exposure,” Mr Shamu said.
“No one knows how it will play out.
“It will be very interesting, come Monday, to see how markets will react because we could still get a yes vote and it could still be risk off.
“There’s definitely a lot of uncertainty feeding through to the Australian market.”
Another negative for the market was a 5.3 per cent fall in the spot iron ore price on Thursday to $US55.80, its lowest level since April.
The big miners and the big four banks all lost more than one per cent, with BHP Billiton dropping 41 cents, or 1.52 per cent to $26.59, Fortescue Metals falling nine cents to $1.82 while Rio Tinto shed 53 cents to $52.50.
Commonwealth Bank fell 79 cents to $86.66, Westpac dropped 25 cents to $32.76, National Australia Bank lost 33 cents to $33.71 and ANZ fell 45 cents to $32.46.
Meanwhile, Qantas said it would give its workforce $90 million in bonuses following a dramatic turnaround after multi-billion-dollar losses in recent years.
Shares in the airline were down seven cents at $3.20.
Childcare operator G8 Education’s shares were down seven cents, or 2.1 per cent, at $3.18 after it launched a takeover bid for smaller rival Affinity Education.
Shares in Affinity were 16 cents, or 29 per cent, higher at 70 cents on the news.
KEY FACTS
* At the close on Friday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was 61.5 points, or 1.1 per cent, lower at 5,538.3.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 59.9 points, or 1.07 per cent, at 5,528.0, according to preliminary figures.
* The September share price index futures contract was 62 points lower at 5,481, with 26,871 contracts traded.
* National turnover was 1.6 billion securities worth $4.89 billion.