Face of Nation : The Australian share market has suffered its worst day in five weeks following a trade row between Japan and South Korea and concerns that the US won’t deliver on interest rate cuts.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index finished down 79.1 points, or 1.17 per cent, to 6,672.2 points at 1615 AEST on Monday, while the broader All Ordinaries was down 74.4 points, or 1.09 per cent, to 6,757.4.
“A bit depressing to start off the week like this,” Bell Direct equities analyst Julia Lee said.
The ASX closed at the day’s lows and the losses wiped out more than half of the gains made during last week’s five-day winning streak.
Other Asian markets were down, with the Shanghai Composite falling 2.5 per cent and the Korean KOSPI down 2.2 per cent following Japan’s decision to tighten exports to South Korea of key semiconductor and display components.
US non-farm payrolls also came in on Friday much better than expected, dampening expectations for a rate cut, Ms Lee said.
Every sector of the ASX was down on Monday with property the worst hit, down 2.4 per cent, followed by utilities at 2.1 per cent.
Westfield operator Scentre Group was down 1.9 per cent to $4.05, commercial property company Goodman Group dropped 3.8 per cent to $15.46 and developer Mirvac was down 2.7 per cent to $3.23.
House and land developer Villa World was up four cents, or 1.8 per cent, to $2.32 after its board backed a $293 million takeover offer by private equity-backed Avid Property Group.
Avid is offering shareholders $2.345 in cash per share, a 17.8 per cent premium to Villa World’s closing price just before its initial offer was made public on March 14.
Among utilities, AGL was down 2.6 per cent to $20.55, APA Group dropped two per cent to $10.97 and Genesis Energy was down three per cent to $3.26.
The health care, mining, industrial and financial sectors were all down between 1.1 and 1.5 per cent.
Among the big banks, ANZ dropped one per cent to $27.88, NAB was down 0.8 per cent to $26.75, Westpac dipped 1.2 per cent to $28.02 and Commonwealth was down 1.2 per cent to $81.28.
Mining titan BHP was down 1.8 per cent to $40.56, Rio Tinto dropped one per cent to $102.91 but Fortescue Metals gained 0.6 per cent to $8.85.
Trading volume was light and company news scarce with the school holidays beginning in NSW, Ms Lee said, and will likely remain so for the next two weeks.
The Aussie dollar is buying 69.86 US cents, from 70.17 US cents on Friday.
* The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 79.1 points, or 1.17 per cent, to 6,672.2 points at 1630 AEST on Monday.
* The All Ordinaries was down 74.4 points, or 1.09 per cent, to 6,757.4.
* At 1630 AEST, the SPI200 futures index was flat at 6,615.
CURRENCY SNAPSHOT AT 1630 AEST:
One Australian dollar buys:
* 69.86 US cents, from 70.17 US cents on Friday
* 75.67 Japanese yen, from 75.73 yen
* 62.25 euro cents, from 62.24 cents
* 55.82 British pence, from 55.79 pence
* 105.16 NZ cents, unchanged.
