The Australian sharemarket dived on its first day of trade after an extended Christmas break, with 10 out 11 industry sectors falling.
The S&P/ASX 200 was down 37 points or 0.42 per cent to 8725.70 at Monday’s close, led by the info tech sector which lost 1.05 per cent.
A brief morning rally in gold stocks failed to offset a sharp fall (6.47 per cent) at Netwealth Group, a financial services provider recently forced to pay $100 million in compensation over failures at superannuation fund First Guardian. Controversial weapons manufacturer Droneshield also saw its shares slide 4.56 per cent.
Australian shares are set to slip on opening, with futures pointing to a slight fall.Credit: Getty Images
Gold miners Northern Star Resources and Evolution Mining rose in early trade on the back of bullion setting fresh records last week, but pared back gains during the day, with Northern Star closing 0.74 per cent lower and Evolution managing a small gain of 0.46 per cent.
Precious metals surged to fresh records last week, extending a powerful year-end rally that was fuelled by rising geopolitical tensions and a softer US dollar. Gold, silver and platinum all climbed to all-time highs, lifting shares of other global miners, including Coeur Mining and Freeport-McMoRan. The spot gold price rose 1.1 per cent by Friday; earlier, the yellow metal had peaked above $US4530 ($6760) an ounce.
Global mining behemoth BHP closed down 0.37 per cent and Rio Tinto, while initially up, fell 0.53 per cent over the day’s trade. Fortescue ended down 1.3 per cent.
Only one of the bourse’s 11 industry sectors, healthcare, was in the green.
Three of the big banks, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac, ended the day down slightly, while the ANZ remained buoyant, up 0.28 per cent. Energy stocks also fell.
The Australian dollar was trading about US67.22¢ late afternoon Monday.
