Australian stocks plunge on falling oil value, S&P 200 sheds 32pts

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SYDNEY: Australian stocks declined  for a second straight session on Wednesday, tracking weakness in Wall Street as dipping oil and worries of Greece’s probable exit from the euro zone drove shareholders away from stocks.
The S&P/ASX 200 index barely moved in 2014 and has started the New Year on a tepid note, already down 1.5 percent in January so far as a global commodities slump has hit sentiment.
On Wednesday, it fell 32 points, or 0.6 percent, to 5,332.8 by 0106 GMT. The benchmark ended 1.6 percent lower on Tuesday.
“Our market obviously looks weak, it’s kind of a follow through from what we’ve seen in the U.S. overnight,” said Kara Ordway, market strategist at City Index.
The three major U.S. stock indexes fell for a fifth straight session. For the Standard & Poor’s 500, it was the longest such losing streak since late 2013.
“Retail traders are still trying to look for bargains out there and they are still willing to buy into stocks,” Ordway added.
There was some buying interest in junior miners and banks, analysts said. Junior gold miners such as Northern Star , Resolute Mining and OceanaGold were up about 5 percent while Atlas Iron and Arrium were up 10 and 6.8 percent, respectively.
Energy-related stocks succumbed to falling oil prices. Origin Energy, Oil Search and Santos were down 1.5-2 percent. Large miners BHP and Rio Tinto fell 0.4 and 0.9 percent, respectively.
The big banks were all down 0.5 to 1 percent, contributing to the index’s weakness.
Shares of information solutions provider Infomedia fell about 20 percent after it downgraded its FY15 earnings forecast.
Across the Tasman sea, New Zealand’s benchmark NZX50 index slipped 17.76 points or 0.3 percent to 5,543.97, extending the previous day’s losses and backing away from a lifetime high of 5,604.86 hit earlier this week.
Leading the losses was the Warehouse Group, which fell as much as 9 percent to a two-year low of NZ$2.83 after the country’s biggest retailer said it expected a 20 percent fall in half-year profit.
Warehouse’s losses had a knock-on effect on Kathmandu which fell 3.8 percent to a two-year low of NZ$2.01 on concerns that the outdoor wear retailer may be hit by a tough retail environment after it warned last month that its Australian operations were struggling.