PERTH: The Australian sharemarket was substantially lower at noon, as weakness in key mining stocks weighed on the local bourse.
At 12.05pm (AEST), the benchmark S & P/ASX200 index was 36.6 points, or 0.64 per cent, lower at 5698.9, while the broader All Ordinaries index slipped 32.4 points, or 0.57 per cent, to 5697.9.
Materials weighed heavily on the market, after BHP Billiton shares suffered their biggest fall since 2008. BHP’s South32 assets were spun off from the company ahead of their listing on the stock exchange at midday today.
South32 debuted at $2.13 at noon (AEST), valuing the company at around $11.3 billion, but the stock quickly moved to hover around the $2.20 level by 12.05pm.
BHP Billiton retreated 6.57 per cent to $30.035. Earlier the stock had fallen as much as 7.1 per cent, the biggest one-day fall since December 2008.
Locally today, Reserve Bank deputy governor Philip Lowe told the Corporate Finance Forum in Sydney that the central bank was treading a fine line between stimulating the economy without causing potentially damaging imbalances.
Elsewhere, sales of new motor vehicles in Australia declined 1.5 per cent in April, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
ANZ lost 1.75 per cent to $32.54, while Commonwealth Bank fell 1.31 per cent to $83.64.
