The Australian share market has closed lower amid mixed company earnings reports and a firmer expectation that the US central bank will lift interest rates this year.
US Federal Reserve vice-chairman Stanley Fischer flagged over the weekend that a rise in interest rates in 2016 is still under consideration.
Mr Fischer said the US economy was close to meeting the Fed’s goals and that growth would gain momentum.
CMC Markets chief market analyst Ric Spooner said the comments had pushed markets down.
“There’s been a mildly negative reaction from stock markets in the Asian time zone (except Japan), including our own, to statements by the Fed’s Stanley Fischer which just seems, at least at the margin, to increase the chances of a rate hike this year,” Mr Spooner said.
“Other than that, it has been a similar sort of day to previous ones where the market has been reacting to profit statements.”
Mr Spooner said resources and energy stocks were mostly weaker, most likely in response to a stronger US dollar.
In the resources sector, BHP Billiton was down 34 cents at $20.95, and Rio Tinto fell 59 cents to $49.20.
Fortescue Metals Group slipped 12 cents to $4.81 despite more than trebling its full-year profit and a sharp lift in its dividend on the back of a partial rebound in iron prices and lower costs.
Steelmaker BlueScope Steel jumped 47 cents, or 5.7 per cent, to $8.72. BlueScope said it expects earnings to continue lifting after more than doubling full-year profit, helped by sharp cost reductions and high sales growth.
Outdoor advertising firm APN Outdoor plunged $2.91, or 35.32 per cent, to $5.33 after a gloomy outlook for current financial year ad revenue.
Online jobs portal Seek was off 17 cents at $16.36 despite lifting its full-year profit by 27 per cent to $357.1 million, a result helped by domestic revenue growing at its strongest pace in five years.
Engineering group UGL gained 13 cents, or 4.92 per cent, to $2.77. UGL hopes to claw back some of a $200 million writedown it made on the massive Ichthys natural gas project near Darwin but is unsure when it will pay shareholders a dividend again.
Among the major banks, ANZ gave away six cents to $26.62, Westpac retreated five cents to $29.97, Commonwealth Bank dumped 33 cents at $73.12, and National Australia Bank scraped off one cent at $27.29.
KEY FACTS:
* On Monday, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was down 11.6 points, or 0.21 per cent, at 5,515.1 points.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 13.1 points, or 0.23 per cent, at 5,612.3 points.
* The September share price index futures contract was down five points at 5,491 points, with 23,025 contracts traded.
* National turnover was 2.8 billion securities traded, worth $5.1 billion.
