Australian share prices dropped 1.4 percent on Monday after Wall Street retreated ahead of the weekend on the back of dire unemployment figures, dealers said. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 fell 52.4 points to 3,683.3 while the broader All Ordinaries shed 56.4 points to 3,624.0.
Preliminary national turnover was some 981 million shares worth about 1.9 billion dollars (1.3 billion US), with 361 stocks moving up, 507 down and 246 unchanged. "The Australian stock market closed broadly lower today as softer leads from UK and US markets weighed," IG Markets analyst Ben Potter said.
US stocks tumbled Friday after a labour report showed the worst annual job losses since World War II, with the Dow Jones sliding 1.6 percent to close at 8,599.18. While in Europe, London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares fell 1.26 percent to 4,448.54 points. Potter said the Australian market was not helped by news that local job advertisements fell for an eighth month in December, by 9.7 percent, after a decline of 8.6 percent in November.
CMC Markets senior dealer Dominic Vaughan said the job figures reflected the fallout in Australia from the state of the world economy. "It looks like this global economy is going to remain very weak," he told national news agency AAP. The major miners were lower with BHP Billiton off 2.7 percent to 30.83 dollars and Rio Tinto shedding 6.0 percent to 41.30 dollars. Energy stocks also fell with Santos losing 2.6 percent to 14.09 dollars and Woodside Petroleum slipping 0.8 percent to 35.70 dollars.