Flying start fades as banks, retailers hit

After getting off to a flying start and touching record highs, the sharemarket was dragged lower by banking and retail stocks.
Investors sold out of the banks after collecting the generous dividends and appeared to head for Mayne Group's offspring, Symbion Health.
Symbion, which debuted with strong trading on Monday, rose 37c or 11.7 per cent to $3.53 with more than 10.8 million shares traded.
After hitting a record high of 4680.1, the ASX 200 index fell 31.3 points to 4622.9.
The All Ordinaries closed 28.7 points weaker at 4569.5.
CMC Markets analyst David Land said the market suffered a 40-point turnaround once the early positive sentiment had evaporated.
"With the index being dominated by the big end of the finance sector, it is going to be tough on any given day to move very much higher with negative movements by the likes of ANZ, Macquarie and NAB," Mr Land said.
ANZ fell 27c to $23.65, NAB 31c to $32.45 and Macquarie $1.64 to $68.68. CBA fell 21c to $41.43 and Westpac 5c to $22.15.
CommSec chief equities economist Craig James said the easing in petrol prices should benefit retailers as the Christmas sales period begins. "There is still pain being felt at the hip pocket with the average household paying around $20 a month more for petrol than at the same time a year ago," Mr James said.
"Nevertheless, retailers will be feeling more confident about sales prospects now than two months ago."
However the good cheer could not be translated into share price rises with Woolworths losing 27c to $17.20 and Coles Myer easing 7c to $9.94. Harvey Norman, which yesterday said it expected stronger sales in the lead-up to Christmas than in 2004, dipped 1c to $2.81.
BHP Billiton was off 4c to $21.67 and Rio Tinto dropped 90c to $61.70. Oil and gas producer Woodside added 18c to $33.60 after a small rise in the oil price on Monday night.
"The metals market remains very strong so the big resources companies are still attracting a lot of attention, but at such high levels traders are becoming a little twitchy when it comes to profit taking," Mr Land said.
Telstra rose 1c to $4.06. Private hospital group Ramsay Health Care fell 1c to $9.60 after it said it was on track to meet its targets for 2005-06.
Smartcard technology company Keycorp dipped 0.5c to $1.50 after it said the recent sale of its secure transaction business had prepared it for sustained and profitable growth.
Diversified industrial company Campbell Brothers rose 19c to $10.49 after saying it expects the 2005-06 profit result to be substantially higher than last year's.
Gold stocks were mixed, despite the precious metal hitting 18-year record highs of $US490.80 an ounce, up $3.30. Newcrest Mining fell 22c to $19.96, Newmont firmed 3c to $6.39 and Lihir Gold lost 3c to $2.21.