Reuters: Hot Stocks: Australia shares down, mining services slump on profit warnings, banks retreat

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Australia shares down, mining services slump on profit warnings, banks retreat May 21st 2013, 06:26 Tweet Share this Email Print Related Topics Basic Materials » Industrials » Tue May 21, 2013 2:26am EDT (Updates to close) SYDNEY, May 21 (Reuters) - Australian shares fell 0.6 percent on Tuesday, with banks taking a breather from recent sharp gains while a series of profit warnings took a heavy tool on mining services firms. Investors were also cautiously awaiting comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for any hint of a sooner-than-expected reduction in bond-buying stimulus. Bernanke will appear later on Wednesday before the Congressional Joint Economic Committee. The S&P/ASX 200 index dropped 28.9 points to 5,180.1, according to the latest data. The benchmark rose 0.5 percent on Monday. Banks lost ground after stacking up big gains recently, weighing on the benchmark index. Top lender Commonwealth Bank of Australia dropped 1.4 percent, while Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, the smallest of the "big four", fell 2.0 percent. A spate of profit warnings from Australian mining services firms sent some of their stocks skidding to multi-year lows. Transfield Services Ltd plunged 23.9 percent to an all-time low of A$0.97, while Fleetwood Corp Ltd dived 25.1 percent to a nearly 4-year low of A$5.65. New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index fell 0.2 percent to 4,590.8. (Reporting by Maggie Lu Yueyang; Editing by Shri Navaratnam) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

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