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MELBOURNE, May 2 (Reuters) - Australian and New Zealand shares fell on Monday, hurt by the big banks after a rise in bad debts marred no.3 lender Westpac Banking Corp's WBC.AX half-year results, but gains in Telstra and miners helped trim the market's losses.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO closed down 9.22 points, or 0.2 percent, at 5,243.00, after being more than 1 percent lower around midday.
In New Zealand, where Westpac and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group were the worst performers, the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index .NZ50 fell 28.76 points, or 0.4 percent, to finish at 6,791.82.
Telstra Corp TLS.AX closed up 2.8 percent, to its highest since mid-February, after saying it would return at least A$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion) to shareholders from the sale of most of its stake in Chinese car sales website Autohome Inc ATHM.N . miners shone through the day, led by a nearly 10 percent gain in Evolution Mining EVN.AX .
Top miners BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) BHP.AX and Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) RIO.AX initially fell after a Chinese manufacturing survey for April raised doubts about the strength of a pick-up in the economy, but both ended the day up more than 1 percent.
Virgin Australia Holdings VAH.AX , Australia's No.2 airline, sank 5.7 percent to a two-year low after flagging it expects to report a pre-tax loss in the second-half of this fiscal year and would cut capacity due to a drop in demand.