Australian shares dropped on Tuesday, pulled down by mining and banking sectors, as investors maintained a cautious stance ahead of the US retail sales data that is expected to reveal signs of any impact inflation has had on consumer spending.
The S&P/ASX 200 index was down 0.4% at 7440.00 points, as of 1143 GMT, with every sector trading in the red.
Investors were on the sidelines ahead of key US retail sales data due later in the day, after a report last week showed consumer sentiment in the world's largest economy hitting its lowest point in a decade, due in part to inflation.
Among individual sectors back home, weak iron ore futures caused the heavyweight constituent miners to drop as much as 1.4%, with BHP Group among the top 10 biggest losers, declining 2.2%.
Australian banking stocks took a 0.6% fall, with the "Big Four" lenders shedding between 0.2% and 0.6%.
Technology stocks followed course by slipping 0.6%, with software firm Altium Ltd falling 2.8% to be the worst performer.
Gold stocks also dropped 0.6% to their biggest one-day percentage fall in a week despite strong bullion prices as investors flocked to the safe-haven metal on inflation worries.
Following the trend, the energy sub-index posted losses of about 0.4%, with oil prices slightly weaker on demand-and-supply concerns.
Whitehaven Coal Ltd lost up to 1.6% amid a global fall in coal stocks after an international agreement to reduce coal use at the Glasgow climate meet.
New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index was down 0.3% at 12,920.460 points.
Village operator Summerset Group Holdings Ltd, down 1.8%, hit its lowest level in more than two months and led losses in the NZX 50 index.
In other markets, the S&P 500 E-minis futures were up 0.02%.
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