Australia: Shares fall over 1% as miners, energy stocks weigh

[BENGALURU] Australian shares fell more than 1 per cent on Monday, dragged down by heavyweight mining and energy stocks hurt by weak underlying commodity prices, while tech stocks tracked weakness on the Wall Street.

The S&P/ASX 200 index fell as much as 1.4 per cent to its lowest in two months, before trading 1.2 per cent lower at 7,311.8 as at 0137 GMT.

Benchmark iron ore futures slumped on Friday, as Beijing considered including more cities in its environmental controls, which would lead to reduction in steel production to meet China's accelerated de-carbonisation efforts.

Heavyweight mining stocks fell 3.4 per cent to their lowest in more than nine and a half months. Mining giant Rio Tinto fell 2.3 per cent to its lowest in 10 months, while BHP Group also dropped 3.6 per cent to its lowest in nearly 10 months.

Energy stocks were down 2.1 per cent, with Santos losing 2.8 per cent, followed by Viva Energy Group shedding 2.7 per cent as oil prices fell on Friday after energy companies in the US Gulf of Mexico restarted production.

Wall Street on Friday ended sharply lower in a broad sell-off as rising US Treasury yields pressured market-leading growth stocks.

Taking cues from Wall Street, the Australian technology stocks shed 1.8 per cent, led by Iress, down 3.2 per cent and Xero falling 3.1 per cent.

In contrast, energy infrastructure firm AusNet Services soared as much as 22.2 per cent, after it received a non-binding bid from an infrastructure affiliate of Canadian investor Brookfield Asset Management, which valued AusNet at A$9.57 billion (S$9.36 billion).

In New Zealand, the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index dropped 0.7 per cent to 13,138.74.

Elsewhere, Japan's Nikkei was up 0.6 per cent at 30500.05.

REUTERS