Reuters: Hot Stocks: Australia shares suffer biggest one-day fall in 3 wks on Syria worries

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Australia shares suffer biggest one-day fall in 3 wks on Syria worries Aug 28th 2013, 02:05 Tue Aug 27, 2013 10:05pm EDT (Adds analysis, quotes, stocks on the move) SYDNEY Aug 28 (Reuters) - Australian shares fell 1 percent on Wednesday morning, its biggest one-day drop in 3 weeks, as jitters over a possible U.S.-led military strike against Syria knocked global equities, while a dip in metals prices hurt mining stocks. Copper fell and Shanghai rebar futures dropped the most in nearly a month, prompting a sell-off in miners. BHP Billiton Ltd lost 1.7 percent while Rio Tinto Ltd dropped 2.1 percent. Banks and insurers were also hit hard in a broad-based selloff, with top lender the Commonwealth Bank of Australia down 1 percent, Westpac Banking Corp off 1.2 percent while QBE Insurance Group Ltd declined 1.9 percent. "This selloff is a clear knee jerk reaction by global market participants who are clearly reducing risk over fears the situation in Syria could deteriorate substantially," said Tim Radford, a global analyst with Rivkin Securities. "The best opportunity is to buy the fear-driven selloff, and wait until global leaders restore certainty over the chemical attacks in Syria." Overnight, U.S. stocks suffered their worst day since June, and Asia followed the weak lead on Wednesday with Japan's Nikkei hitting a two-month low, as geopolitical uncertainty rose over a possible U.S.-led military strike against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces for a suspected chemical weapons attack last week. The S&P/ASX 200 index lost 50.7 points to 5,090.5 by 0137 GMT. The benchmark ended 0.1 percent higher on Tuesday. A mixed earnings season and uncertainty over when the U.S. Federal Reserve plans to taper its stimulus programme have confined the benchmark around the 5,100 level for most of August. "Overall its still been a mixed bag (for earnings)and I think the market is reflecting that," said Chris Nelson-Smith, market maker at City Index. "There has been some strength in the last couple of days but overall there haven't been any that have stood out in particular, and nothing that has dragged down the market significantly." AGL Energy Ltd rallied 3.2 percent to A$14.83, a near four-week high after the company reported its full year revenue up 30.3 percent to $9.72 billion. Woolworths Ltd added 0.7 percent after it said it expected earnings to grow in the current year, as it posted a 3.3 percent rise in annual profit. Elsewhere, Collection House Ltd fizzled 4.6 percent to A$1.68 after the company completed a capital raising at a discounted price of $1.65 per share. New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index fell 0.5 percent to 4,521.4. (Reporting by Thuy Ong; Editing by Shri Navaratnam) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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