News from AAP

Stocks close lower after early gains slide

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The Australian share market has closed lower, with early gains evaporating as investors undertook strategic sell-offs.

“Today’s a bit of a frustrating day,” Australian Stock Report head of research Chris Conway told AAP.

Mr Conway said investors appeared to be using the rally earlier in the day to sell off their stocks.

“It’s a chance to get out of positions they don’t want to hold going forward,” he said.

“They ultimately don’t want to hold because the fundamental outlook hasn’t really changed. The world hasn’t gotten a whole lot better.”

The S&P/ASX 200 finished 0.6 per cent lower, down 30.2 points to 4971.

The big banks all finished at least one per cent lower, with ANZ seeing the biggest drop of 53 cents to $29.57.

“The financials had a pretty good night in the US, but that has not happened here,” Mr Conway said

On a busy day of company profit results, Qantas beat shareholders’ expectations with a record full year profit of $557 million. However the airline’s share price slid five per cent, or 20 cents to $3.79.

Big energy stocks were trading lower, including Oil Search, which posted a full year loss of $54.45 million. Its shares fell 22 cents to $7.03, while AGL slid 42 cents to $18.25.

BHP Billiton’s shares rose by more than two per cent, despite the mining giant announcing a $7.84 billion half year loss, slashing its shareholder dividend and abandoning its progressive payout policy.

Mr Conway’s explanation for the 45 cent lift to $17.63 was investor optimism that things couldn’t possibly get worse.

“I think people are looking at those numbers and saying, that’s in the past, surely the next six months couldn’t be as bad as the six months just gone,” he said.

KEY FACTS

* At 1615 AEDT, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 21.6 points, or 0.43 per cent, at 4979.6 points.

* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 17.5 points, or 0.35 per cent, at 5039.1 points.

* The March share price index futures contract was down 19 points at 4,942 with 28,318 contracts traded, according to preliminary calculations.

* The price of gold in Sydney at 1700 AEDT was $US1,216.21 per fine ounce, down nine cents on Monday’s price of $US1,216.30.

* Preliminary national turnover was 3.06 billion securities traded, worth $6.2 billion.