The Australian share market has given away early gains to close lower after poor domestic retail sales figures, underwhelming Chinese economic data and softening support for the major banks weighed upon investor sentiment.
Atlantic Pacific Securities client adviser Gary Huxtable said the local bourse started off well, following a positive lead from US markets which lifted on better-than-expected jobs numbers for January.
The big four banks found early support, emulating banking stocks in the US, which were boosted by US President Donald Trump’s plan to roll back rules introduced in the wake of the global financial crisis to restrict global banks’ lending and investment practices.
“We had a relatively positive offshore lead from the US on Friday,” Mr Huxtable said.
“But the market’s been slowly unwinding throughout the day.”
Mr Huxtable said support for the banks started to soften after National Australia Bank warned it will continue to face increased funding costs and competition, and the bank’s first-quarter unaudited cash earnings slipped about one per cent to $1.6 billion.
Also figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that retail sales slipped 0.1 per cent to $25.6 billion in December, missing market expectations of a 0.3 per cent rise.
Furthermore, data out of China showed that although China’s services sector had continued to grow in January, the pace of growth had slowed, compared to December.
Among the major banks on Monday Westpac, Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank were slightly higher but ANZ was slightly lower.
National Australia Bank was up 23 cents, or 0.8 per cent, at $30.62.
In the retail sector, homewares retailer Harvey Norman backtracked three cents to $4.84, and electronics retailer JB HiFi eased 18 cents to $27.30.
The big miners were mixed: BHP Billiton down one per cent while, Fortescue Metals was steady and Rio Tinto lifted.
Oil and gas producer Santos was off three cents at $3.92 after it fell short of its target of raising $500 million through a share purchase plan for retail shareholders.
Building products supplier Boral added four cents to $5.70 after shareholders of US building materials maker Headwaters Incorporated approved a $US2.6 billion (A$3.4 billion) takeover bid by Boral.
Meanwhile, the Australian dollar was higher against the US dollar, at 76.65 US cents at 1630 AEDT.
ON THE ASX:
* On Monday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 was down six points, or 0.11 per cent, at 5,615.6 points.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 7.1 points, or 0.13 per cent, at 5,665.4 points.
* The March SPI200 futures contract was down eight points, or 0.14 per cent, at 5,564 points, with 30,026 contracts traded at 1630 AEDT.
* National turnover was 3.04 billion securities traded worth $5.1 billion.
