Australian shares pulled down by banks, Fortescue boosts miners

Australian shares eased on Monday, as losses in heavyweight financials outweighed gains in miners led by Fortescue Metals Group on the back of record annual profit and dividend.

The S&P/ASX 200 index was down 0.1% to 7,482.6 by 0106 GMT after closing about 0.4% higher last week.

Financials dropped more than 1%, with all the "Big Four" banks trading in negative territory. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Australia and New Zealand Banking Corp , National Australia Bank and Westpac Banking Corp fell between 0.8% and 1.4%.

Australian shares drop on virus woes; gold, tech stocks plunge

Miners gained as much as 3.4% and were headed for their best session since May 10. Fortescue jumped 6.2% to a two-week high after the world's fourth-largest ironore miner said its annual underlying net profit more than doubled to $10.35 billion.

Gold stocks rose, benefiting from a jump in bullion prices after U.S Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stopped short of signalling when the central bank would start withdrawing its economic support.

Newcrest Mining added 1.6%, while Northern Star Resources jumped 4.7%.

Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium on Friday calmed investor fears over the tapering timetable and pushed major Wall Street indexes to record closing highs.

Crown Resorts Ltd rose 0.6% even after the casino operator reported an annual loss, hurt by lockdown-driven casino closures and regulatory costs, and said it was no longer talking to Oaktree Capital Group over its stake-buy proposal.

Meanwhile, Victoria reported 73 new COVID-19 cases, a day after Premier Dan Andrews said he would extend lockdown measures across the country's second-most populous state.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index rose 0.8% to 13,160.19. SKY Network Television Ltd jumped 5.4% and topped the benchmark index.