Australian shares closed sharply lower yesterday, with the market undergoing a further correction following a negative lead from Wall Street overnight.
Resources, banking and media stocks closed in the red today, as selling swept the market.
At the 4.05pm AEST close, the S&P/ASX200 was 82.1 points lower at 4377.2 while the all ordinaries had dropped 76.6 points to 4345.9.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the December share price index was down 88 points at 4371, on a volume of 22,224 contracts after preliminary calculations.
Bell Potter senior adviser Stuart Smith said the market was experiencing a well-overdue correction.
"There could well be distress selling until there's a level of value reached, and that may be about 4250 on the S&P/ASX 200," he said.
Market leader BHP Billiton dropped 70 cents to $20.05.
Rio Tinto shrank $1.71 to $56.19, after the resources giant announced in its third quarter production report saying it sustained high levels of production during the period, with most operations producing at or near capacity.
Alumina gave up 12 cents to $5.68.
Newcrest tumbled 10 per cent or $2.18 to $18.00. The gold miner warned that it would not meet profit expectations in the first half of 2006 because of problems at the Telfer gold and copper mine in Western Australia.
Elsewhere in the gold mining sector, Newmont fell 23 cents to $5.89 and Lihir dropped 11 cents to $1.65.
The big banks were lower across the board. Commonwealth retreated 60 cents to $37.48, NAB gave up 44 cents to $31.92, Westpac cast off 21 cents to $20.35 and ANZ fell 30 cents to $23.20.
Among media stocks, PBL lost five cents to $16.26. Fairfax fell 12 cents to $4.16.
News Corp stock declined 38 cents to $20.54 while its preferred scrip descended 28 cents to $19.66.
Elsewhere, Woolworths shares put on 13 cents to $15.79 after the supermarket giant reported a 14.4 per cent increase in first quarter sales to $8.88 billion despite the impact of rising petrol prices.
Coles Myer lost six cents to $9.68.
Air New Zealand shares descended 3.5 cents to 99 cents after the airline warned that soaring fuel prices and an oversupply of capacity will cut its 2006 pre-tax profit by more than 50 per cent to $100 million (A$92.7 million).
Qantas was down seven cents to $3.33 and Virgin Blue gained four cents to $1.59.
Woodside said increased production and higher commodity prices have underpinned the oil producer's year-to-date revenue, which is up 27.6 per cent on the first nine months of 2004.
Woodside shares dropped 69 cents to $31.71.
Telstra cast away six cents to $4.07 while Optus owner Singapore Telecommunications fell 2.5 cents to $1.89.
The spot price of gold in Sydney at 1652 AEST was US$469.20 per ounce, down US$4.725 on yesterday's close.
The top traded stock was air purification company AFT Corp, with 54.19 million shares traded for a total value of $1.81 million. The stock gained 0.1 of a cent to 3.3 cents.
Preliminary market turnover reached 1.13 billion shares, worth a total $3.86 billion, with 319 stocks rising, 683 falling and 301 unchanged.
- AAP
<EM>Australian stocks:</EM> Stocks close lower as market corrects
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