The Australian sharemarket snapped a seven-day winning streak by closing about 1% lower on Monday with just one sector finishing in the black, as one of the Big Four banks handed down a weaker than expected result.
The S&P/ASX 200 finished 80.20 points or 0.97% down at 8,157.80, dropping steadily through the day despite a brief rally in the early afternoon.
Health Care was the only one of the 11 ASX sectors to finish higher, but only just at 0.06%, helped by increases in the prices of sector giant CSL along with Sigma Healthcare, Fisher & Paykel Health Care and Ramsay Healthcare.
This helped push the index to a 5.35% gain over the last five days.
Despite a strong finish on Wall Street on Friday, the tone for the ASX was set by falls in the U.S. benchmark indices in subsequent futures trading.
Westpac Banking Corp led the financials index down after announcing an interim profit that was 1% below the previous corresponding period and well below consensus forecasts, with the share price ending $1.00 or 2.99% lower at $32.45.
Endeavour Group finished flat at $4.16 after disclosing subdued third quarter trading but solid Easter sales in the first quarter to date.
In the fixed interest market, the Australian Government bond yield curve flattened with the 10-year rate falling 0.21% to 4.275% and the two-year rate rising 0.06% to 3.332%.
