* Investors book profit after strong rally last week
* Banks, energy shares hardest hit
* Gold miners among top index gainers
* 140 shares down, 51 up and 9 unchanged (Adds analysis, quotes, stocks on the move)
By Swati Pandey and Ian Chua
SYDNEY/WELLINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Australian shares fell 0.6 percent on Monday as investors booked profits across the board following a strong 5-day rally which led to the index's best weekly performance in four years.
The S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO slipped 33.99 points to 5,245.7 by 0046 GMT. The benchmark rose 1.3 percent on Friday and ended 4.5 percent higher for the week.
The market will look for direction from Wall Street this week with the five biggest U.S. banks by market capitalisation - Goldman Sachs (N:GS) GS.N , Bank of America Corp (N:BAC) BAC.N , Wells Fargo (N:WFC) WFC.N , Citigroup (N:C) C.N and JPMorgan Chase (N:JPM) JPM.N - due to report results.
"It just seems to be some profit-taking after a strong run in the market last week, particularly in some of the oil-related stocks," said Bill Keenan, general manager equities and researcher at Lonsec.
"We're still keeping a cautious view with the key direction from here, it being the U.S. profits season."
Banks and energy stocks were the hardest hit on Monday but analysts expect the sell-off to be limited with the index seen trading around 4,900-5,300 in the near term.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia CBA.AX and National Australia Bank NAB.AX fell about 1 percent while Westpac WBC.AX was down 0.7 percent.
Energy-related shares such as Santos STO.AX and Oil Search OSH.AX fell about 2 percent each while healthcare stocks CSL CSL.AX and Ramsey RHC.AX were down 1.6 percent each.
Investors adopted a cautious approach on miners - while BHP Billiton (L:BLT) BHP.AX fell 0.8 percent rival Rio Tinto (L:RIO) RIO.AX rose 0.2 percent.
Fortescue FMG.AX surged 6.4 percent after it said on Friday it was open to asset sale discussions. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nNrm3Y468L
Gold miners such as Evolution EVN.AX and Oceanagold OGC.AX jumped between 3 and 11 percent after the precious metal hit a seven-week high on Friday.
U.S. stocks closed slightly higher on Friday, ending the S&P 500's best week for 2015.
In contrast, New Zealand stocks put in a spirited performance with the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 climbing 0.8 percent to 5,681.7, extending last week's 0.8 percent gain.
Among the top performers, A2 Milk Company ATM.NZ rallied 5.1 percent, communications services provider Spark SPK.NZ rose 1.3 percent, while retail store chain Kathmandu Holdings KMD.NZ put on 3.4 percent.
Gains were broad with only a handful of stocks either flat or in the red.