Miners and energy stocks lead steep share market fall
The Australian share market is following overseas bourses lower after oil prices slumped again overnight.
The benchmark West Texas crude price fell below $US50 for the first time in nearly six years overnight, closing just above that level.
The renewed slide in oil prices, which had already roughly halved over the past year, has trigged steep falls in energy stocks.
Those falls were a key factor dragging Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 index 1.8 per cent lower to 2,021 and London's FTSE 2 per cent lower to 6,417.
They have had a similar effect on the resources-heavy Australian share market, where the benchmark ASX 200 was down 93 points to 5,358 by 11:16am (AEDT) and the broader All Ordinaries was also off 1.7 per cent to 5,339 points.
Energy stocks Woodside (5.1 per cent), Oil Search (7.1 per cent) and Santos (7.5 per cent) are amongst the major companies leading the declines.
Diversified miner and energy company BHP Billiton has also been hit hard, sliding 4.75 per cent to $28.08.
Other miners were also hit as iron ore prices eased back around half a per cent in China yesterday: Fortescue was down 4.3 per cent while Rio Tinto fell 2.75 per cent to $56.87.
Specialist copper miners were also lower: Sandfire was down 5.3 per cent and Oz Minerals 3 per cent to $3.55.
However, gold miner Newcrest was up 1.8 per cent as the price of the precious metal rose back just above $US1,200 an ounce.
Qantas was another one of the few bright spots on the market, rising 4.8 per cent to $2.62 as a major beneficiary of cheaper fuel prices, although rival Virgin was down 1.2 per cent.
The major banks were weighing on the market, with ANZ's 1.5 per cent fall the worst and the Commonwealth Bank's 0.9 per cent decline the smallest of the big four.
Woolworths was down 1.4 per cent to $29.80, with Wesfarmers off 0.6 per cent.
Medibank Private backed away from a recent run up in its share price, sliding 2.9 per cent to $2.32.
The Australian dollar was back up above 81 US cents, to 81.1.
