Market pauses after week's strong gains

The sharemarket closed weaker yesterday as investors took a breather following last week's big gains.
The ASX 200 lost 16.9 points to 4654.2 while the All Ordinaries fell 12.4 points to 4598.2.
Macquarie Equities analyst Lucinda Chan said the limited trading week, courtesy of the Thanksgiving holiday in the US this Thursday, was affecting trading.
"It's a little bit quiet," she said. "It's a bit of a breathing space for the market after the … large run last week."
Ms Chan said she expected a similar pattern for the rest of the week. "I think we will be finding our own feet these next few days.
"We are almost back to our all-time highs again, so people are probably a little bit cautious."
The US provided a strong lead on Friday. All the major indices were stronger thanks to declining oil prices and positive news from Hewlett-Packard and General Electric.
Locally the big four banks finished in negative territory with NAB dropping 69c to $32.76 after going ex-dividend.
CBA shed 36c to $41.64, ANZ was down 13c to $23.92 while Westpac dipped 4c to $22.20.
Macquarie Bank also went ex-dividend and closed $1.58 weaker at $70.32 while St George rose 13c to $29.50.
Strong commodity prices did not provide any direction to the big miners, which ended mixed. Rio Tinto rose 15c to $62.60 and BHP Billiton fell 14c to $21.71.
Energy stocks were mostly stronger as the oil price firmed. Woodside gained 23c to $33.42 while Santos added 7c to $11.30.
Shares in brewer Lion Nathan fell 3c to $7.46 after it lifted its takeover bid for Coopers Brewery to $310 a share, up from the initial $260 a share.
The retail sector lacked direction with Woolworths rising 12c to $17.47 and Harvey Norman steady at $2.82 while Coles Myer dropped 5c to $10.01.
Shares in the media sector were mixed with News Corp putting on 24c to $20.95 and its non-voting shares gaining 22c to $19.96, while John Fairfax lost 2c to $4.04.
Telstra fell 7c to $4.05 while Optus owner Singapore Telecommunications closed steady at $1.92.
Mayne Group's demerger took effect on the market with its domestic healthcare business, Symbion Health, outperforming its new global pharmaceutical company, Mayne Pharma.
Symbion put on 19.5c to $3.16 while Mayne Pharma was trading at $2.85.
Goldminers were mostly stronger with Newmont up 3c to $6.36, Newcrest 15c stronger at $20.18 and Lihir Gold rising 3c to $2.24.
The top traded stock by volume was the distributor of an avian bird flu test, Rockeby Biomed.
More than 89.1 million of its shares swapped hands for a total $4.23 million. Rockeby jumped 1.7c to 4.7c.