Australian shares slipped on Tuesday hurt by the losses in miners and gold stocks on weak commodity prices, while investors absorbed the possibility of interest rates to remain higher for longer.
The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.5% to 7039.7 by 0040 GMT.
The benchmark rose 0.1% on Monday.
Markets assessed a slew of central bank decisions, with the U.S Federal Reserve striking a hawkish tone signalling that interest rates could raise further and would stay higher for longer than investors had expected.
Miners declined 1% on weak iron ore prices, as traders were worried about weaker-than-expected steel consumption during the peak construction season in top consumer China.
Iron ore behemoths BHP and Rio Tinto fell 1.3% and 0.4%, respectively.
Gold stocks fell more than a 1%, with country’s largest gold miner Newcrest Mining down 1.3%.
Technology stocks slipped 1.7%, with cloud services provider, Megaport leading losses in the sub-index, falling nearly 4%.
Energy stocks edged down 0.2%, as oil prices settled near flat overnight after Russia relaxed its fuel ban amid concerns that elevated interest rates could curb demand.
Sector majors Santos led losses on the sub-index slipping 0.4%.
Financial stocks dipped 0.4%, with the “big four” banks down between 0.3% and 0.9%.
Elsewhere, support for a referendum to constitutionally recognise Australia’s Indigenous people slipped further, with the landmark proposal set to fail in a national vote roughly three weeks away, according to a Reuters poll.
In New Zealand, the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index lost 0.1% to 11,361.83.
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