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MELBOURNE - After soaring to record highs this week, the Australian stock market closed lower today weighed down by weaker Asian markets, falling commodity prices and a stronger Australian dollar.
At the 1615 AEST close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 22.5 points to 6135.7 while the all ordinaries lost 19 points to 6123.8.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange at 1622 AEST, the June share price index contract was down 40 points to 6167 on a volume of 18,387 contracts.
MFS Ltd chief investment officer Guy Hutchings said that after recent strong gains, investors thought it was time take profits, especially with a potentially volatile week ahead for US economic data and Asian markets uniformly lower.
"The market just seemed to run into a resistance on a kind of nothing day after reaching new all time highs earlier in the week and in anticipation of the release of inflation and trade related data in the US tonight," Mr Hutchings said.
The falls came despite a strong performance on Wall Street overnight, but in line with a very mixed performance performance in base metal markets, which saw global miners BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto lead the market lower.
BHP Billiton relinquished 38 cents to $29.85 while Rio Tinto gave up $1.57 to $82.20.
Zinifex reversed 16 cents to $15.61, while oil and gas producer Woodside picked up 65 cents to $39.80 as the price of crude oil rose.
The star of the resources sector was market debutant and uranium explorer Crossland Uranium Mines, which gained 144 per cent or 36 cents to 61 cents.
Crossland has teamed up with Canadian outfit Centram Exploration to explore for uranium in South Australia and the Northern Territory.
CMC Markets senior deal David Foulsham said that with the Australian dollar breaking through the 83 US cent level today, companies like Westfield Group, which generate a large part of their earnings in the US, were hardest hit.
Westfield backtracked 38 cents or 1.8 per cent to $20.90.
The retail sector was mixed with takeover target Coles easing one cent to $17.47, Harvey Norman shedding six cents to $4.96 and David Jones gave back six cents to $4.60.
But supermarket giant Woolworths improved 32 cents to $28.26.
MAN Financial broker Anthony Anderson said Woolworth could benefit from any break-up of Coles assets, but there is also talk it could acquire Coles' Target or Officeworks units.
Meanwhile, toy marketer Funtastic said it was no longer in talks with a third party about a possible takeover and its shares sagged 13.7 per cent or 27.5 cents to $1.735.
In the media sector, News Corp slipped 23 cents to $30.07 while its non-voting scrip lost 10 cents to $28.25.
Fairfax was steady at $5.03 and Publishing and Broadcasting eased one cent to $19.89.
West Australian Newspapers slumped almost four per cent or 63 cents to $15.62.
Telstra declined seven cents to $4.81, while Telecom New Zealand, which has signalled it is willing to sell its copper line network rather than face a proposed regulatory three-way split, retreated seven cents to $4.19.
The banking sector was holding up amid some 'safe haven' buying head of the weekend.
National Australia Bank improved 26 cents to $42.56, Commonwealth Bank was 20 cents richer at $51.80 and ANZ, which reports its half year results on April 26, gained 15 cents to $30.33.
Westpac was steady at $26.29.
Drugs manufacturer and pharmacy services provider Sigma Pharmaceuticals fell more than six per cent or 16 cents to $2.44 after some major shareholders sold a portion of their stock.
The price of spot gold slipped 35 US cents on yesterday's closing Sydney price, trading at US$677.50 by 1645 AEST.
Newcrest Mining was 44 cents poorer at $23.51, Lihir Gold depreciated six cents to $3.20 and Newmont offloaded seven cents to $5.17.
The top traded stock by volume was minerals explorer Chrome Corporation with 107.92 million stocks traded, worth $542,070.
Its share price improve one tenth of a cent to 0.6 of a cent.
Preliminary national market turnover was 2.04 billion stocks worth $6.52 billion, with 642 stocks up, 636 down and 317 unchanged.
- AAP