Reuters: Hot Stocks: Australia shares down 0.6 pct as mining services slump, banks retreat

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Australia shares down 0.6 pct as mining services slump, banks retreat May 21st 2013, 06:55 Tue May 21, 2013 2:55am EDT (Adds details, comments) SYDNEY, May 21 (Reuters) - Australian shares fell 0.6 percent on Tuesday, with banks taking a break from recent sharp gains while a series of profit warnings took a heavy toll 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 on Wednesday before the Congressional Joint Economic Committee. "People will have to wrestle with that: what's going to happen with quantitative easing," said Damien Boey, an equity strategist at Credit Suisse in Sydney. "They (investors) are looking at the possibility of quantitative easing coming to an end," he said. The S&P/ASX 200 index dropped 28.9 points to 5,180.1. The benchmark rose 0.5 percent on Monday. New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index fell 0.2 percent to 4,590.8. Banks lost ground after notching 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. Top miners BHP Billiton Ltd pared earlier losses and closed up 0.1 percent, after copper prices bounced back underpinned by confidence in the U.S. economy. Rio Tinto Ltd 0.2 percent. Gold miners, which had been broadly sold off, pared some losses as bullion prices recovered overnight before slipping again on a firm dollar. Newcrest Mining Ltd, Australia's biggest listed gold miner, jumped 7.1 percent, with junior miners Perseus Mining Ltd and St Barbara Ltd both surging 9.5 percent. A spate of profit warnings from Australian mining services companies sent the stocks of some 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. Discovery Metals Ltd sank 41.2 percent to a 4-year low of A$0.20, after the copper miner came off a long trading halt and said it was seeking bids from a number of interested parties, including spurned Chinese private equity suitor Cathay Financial Corp. Australia's biggest phone company Telstra Corp Ltd gained 0.6 percent. The Reserve Bank of Australia said in the minutes of its last monetary meeting that it saw the need to cut interest rates to a record=low 2.75 percent at its May meeting because the economy was still growing at below potential and inflation was not a threat. "I don't think there is any shock there. The door is still open for more cuts," said Peter Esho, an investment advisor at Wilson HTM in Sydney, noting the RBA gave no fresh direction for future moves. (Reporting by Maggie Lu Yueyang; Editing by Eric Meijer) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions