MELBOURNE - The Australian sharemarket eased downwards with the banks and financial services stocks weaker.
The market fell despite a strong lead from Wall Street and a drop in the oil price, but ABN Amro client adviser Bill Bishop said the local bourse was still "undeniably strong".
"There has beena mild levelling off but that doesn't in any way detract from the overall solidness of the market," he said.
"It is powered by a number of things but there is an ocean of cash from all these share buybacks."
At the close of trade the benchmark S&P/ASX200 was 7.8 points lower at 4263. Overnight in the US, Wall Street shook off its pessimism about profit growth as crude oil prices fell and consumer confidence jumped to a three-year high.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 114.85 points to 10,405.63 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 10.88 points to 1201.57.
After a strong showing on Tuesday, all of the big banks were down with the Commonwealth Bank slipping 20Ac to A$37.55, National Australia Bank falling 17Ac to A$30.70 and ANZ dropping 11Ac to A$21.75.
Westpac eased 3Ac to A$19.70 despite a research report forecasting that the bank could make a capital return of as much as A$700 million in coming months.
As the oil price eased back from record levels energy stocks fell with Woodside down 33Ac to A$28.92 and Santos backtracking 12Ac to A$11.22.
Health care stocks were strong again apart from CSL which fell 73c to A$33.86 after Tuesday's strong gains.
Resmed was up 42Ac to A$8.52 and biopharmaceutical company Apollo Life Sciences was 27Ac or 54 per cent richer on 77Ac after its first day of trading.
West Australian winemaker Evans & Tate lifted 9Ac, or 29.03 per cent, to 40Ac despite announcing it was going to write down the value of its inventory.
