The Australian stock market has finished in the red, weighed down by poorly performing resources stocks.
Bell Direct equities analyst Julia Lee said the local market gave up earlier gains due to concerns about Chinese manufacturing.
“It’s been a disappointing performance on the Australian sharemarket,” she said.
“The biggest area that’s been impacted has been the miners after steep falls in London overnight, with the mining sector in London down 1.9 per cent on concerns about the numbers coming out of China.”
Investors are cautious about how economies in China and Asia generally are tracking.
“All the growth areas of our market have been sold off, including energy, materials and industrials,” Ms Lee said.
Meanwhile, Australia’s trade balance figures for November on Tuesday showed a better-than-expected lift in mining and resources exports helped to narrow the deficit for the fourth consecutive month.
But it wasn’t enough to change the miners’ fortunes.
Among the major miners BHP Billiton was down 35 cents, or 0.93 per cent, at $37.21, Rio Tinto had lost 1.75, or 2.6 per cent, to $66.00 and iron ore producer Fortescue Metals was 27 cents, or 4.7 per cent, worse at $5.44.
Westpac was four cents weaker at $32.08, ANZ was down 13 cents at $31.86, and National Australia Bank had fallen five cents to $34.50. But Commonwealth Bank had added 12 cents to $77.72.
Wesfarmers climbed four cents to $43.67 while Woolworths fell four cents to $33.76.
KEY FACTS
* At 1615 AEDT on Tuesday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 7.9 points, or 0.15 per cent, at 5,317.0.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 8.9 points, or 0.17 per cent, at 5,318.8.
* The March share price index futures contract was down 19 points at 5,285, with 18,508 contracts traded.
* National turnover was 1.5 billion securities worth $3.1 billion.
