By Susan Mathew Australian shares fell on Thursday and looked set to snap a 4-day winning streak as worries over rising stockpiles hit shares of resource producers.
The S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO was down 0.9 percent, or 51.358 points, at 5,882.5 at 0248 GMT.
"There's been a decent selloff in mining stocks because iron ore's been absolutely flogged last night, the futures market continues to gravitate lower in a raging bear market now," said Chris Weston, Institutional lender at IG Markets.
"So people are all concerned about holding materials equity here."
Iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange DCIOcv1 was 0.3 percent lower after falling to its lowest price since Jan. 10 in the previous session, while copper slid to three-month lows on Wednesday. IRONORE/ MET/L
Crude oil futures moved away from one-month highs as worries on rising U.S. inventories stoked concerns about global oversupply. O/R
The market also tracked Wall Street, which fell overnight on geopolitical tensions and after President Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal that the dollar "was getting too strong," and he would like to see interest rates stay low. .N
The materials and mining index .AXMM fell 3.4 percent as BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) BHP.AX , Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) RIO.AX and Fortescue Metals FMG.AX lost between 4.9 percent and 6.6 percent.
BHP Billiton extended losses into a third session, falling as much as 4.3 percent. The company rejected minor shareholder Elliot Advisor's proposal to overhaul its corporate structure and spin off its U.S. oil division on Wednesday. Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN) sees BHP and CSL Ltd CSL.AX as a potential targets of hedge fund activism. data from China showed that iron ore imports rose 12.2 percent year-on-year, in the first quarter of the year, though worries are growing about swelling inventories at Chinese ports. Metals reported a 6 percent fall in third-quarter shipments on Thursday but assured it was still headed for a bumper year. energy index .AXEJ slid up to 2 percent as Woodside Petroleum WPL.AX and Oilsearch OSH.AX fell over 2 percent.
Whitehaven coal plunged as much as 8.1 percent after reporting a 11 percent decline in quarterly coal sales while also warning that outages caused by cyclone Debbie will impact coking coal prices for months. the brighter side, job data showed that March employment in Australia rose by 60,900, beating expectations. stocks in the region gained as safe haven demand rose after Trump's comments on the dollar weakened the greenback. GOL/
Newcrest Mining NCM.AX gained 0.6 percent, while Evolution Mining EVN.AX gained nearly 2.3 percent.
Telecom stocks lost as Telstra TLS.AX and Vocus Group VOC.AX lost 1.3 and 6.2 percent respectively. Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index .NZ50 fell 1.1 percent, or 7.7 points, to 7,243.84.
Tegel Group TGH.NZ and Restaurant Brands RBD.NZ led the losses, falling 3.4 percent and 1.3 percent respectively, while Argosy Property ARG.NZ and Fisher and Paykel Healthcare FPH.NZ led gains, rising 2 percent and 1.6 percent respectively.
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