April 20 (Reuters) - Australian shares slipped from 14-month highs on Tuesday, tracking losses on Wall Street, with technology and financial stocks weighing the most on the local benchmark.
The S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO fell 0.5% to 7,030.10 by 0030 GMT, down after rising for five straight sessions to hit its highest level since Feb. 24, 2020 on Monday. It is off more than 2% from a record high scaled in February last year.
Overnight, all three major U.S. indexes settled lower, slipping from last week's record levels as investors awaited direction from corporate earnings, while electric carmaker Tesla TSLA.O fell more than 3%. .N
In other markets, Japan's Nikkei .N225 traded 1.73% lower on Tuesday, while S&P 500 E-minis futures EScv1 were up 0.17%. .T
In Australia, Afterpay APT.AX was among the top percentage gainers on the benchmark, trading 2.6% higher after it said it was exploring a U.S. listing and reported a more than two-fold jump in its third-quarter sales volumes. in Afterpay, however, failed to push the Australian technology index .AXIJ higher. The index declined as much as 1.2%.
Miners .AXMM declined about half a percent, with BHP Group BHP.AX and Fortescue Metals Group FMG.AX falling about 0.2% each.
Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) RIO.AX , the world's biggest iron ore miner, added 0.8% after it reported a 7% rise in its March-quarter iron ore shipments compared with a year earlier. Rare Earths LYC.AX lost as much as 4%, marking its biggest intraday percentage drop in nearly four weeks, after it reported a slight drop in its quarterly rare earths output. stocks .AXFJ fell 0.6%, with top lenders Commonwealth Bank of Australia CBA.AX and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd ANZ.AX declining 0.4% each.
In New Zealand, the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index .NZ50 fell 1% to 12,641.1, its biggest drop in four weeks.
The top percentage loser on the index was Meridian Energy MEL.NZ , down 3.1%. Mercury NZ MCY.NZ fell 2.5%, while Auckland International Airport AIA.NZ slipped 1.7%. ($1 = 1.2868 Australian dollars)