Market weakens as interest dwindles

The sharemarket closed slightly weaker yesterday because of a soft US lead and falling resources stocks.
The ASX 200 dipped 8.6 points to 4616 while the All Ordinaries gave up 8.1 points to 4568.7.
Aequs Securities senior institutional dealer Ric Klusman said trading had been subdued.
"We have had a little bit of weakness in the resources … and the banks are still not really convincing either way."
He said investors were starting to wind down for Christmas.
The banks were mixed with Westpac down 20c to $21.90 and ANZ 8c weaker at $23.58 after announcing it would acquire a stake in China's Tianjin City Commercial Bank for $160 million. The Commonwealth put on 22c to $41.69 and NAB climbed 10c to $32.10.
Mr Klusman said people were also worried about the price of oil, now back near the $US60 a barrel mark.
The strong oil price was not enough to shore up the energy sector, which put on a mixed performance.
Woodside, which said it was close to making agreements to sell liquefied natural gas from its Pluto field to North Asian customers, jumped 48c to $36.38.
Santos lost 15c to $11.75 while Oil Search fell 3c to $3.60. Tap Oil rose 5c to $2.80.
BHP Billiton gave up 20c to $21.83 while Rio Tinto fell 34c to $62.99.
Goldminers retreated with Newcrest down 42c to $21.03, Newmont 2c weaker at $6.28 and Lihir Gold off 4c to $2.08.
Gallery Gold jumped 5.5c to 42.5c after Canadian miner Iamgold Corp made a $270 million buy-out offer.
New entry Dynasty Metals Australia listed at 17.5c, a discount to its 20c issue price, after raising $2.7 million. The stock closed at 19c.
Elsewhere, PBL rose 13c to $16.59 while publisher John Fairfax fell 1c to $3.88.
Telstra fell 2c to $3.84. Westpac and Telstra have signed a new five-year $400 million agreement for the provision of telecommunications for the bank's Australian and Pacific operations.
Retailers lacked direction with Woolworths steady at $16.84, Coles Myer up 2c to $10.02 and Harvey Norman down 1c at $2.93. Miller's Retail was up 0.5c to $1.16.
Fantastic Holdings slid 40c to $3.20. The furniture retailer warned that spending remained unpredictable heading into Christmas and said it had adopted aggressive prices in an effort to stimulate sales.
Newly floated fund of funds HFA Accelerator Plus, which has been strongly supported by a network of financial advisers, stood its ground in a falling market, with the stock ending the day 6c above its $1.10 issue price.
Macquarie Airports said the European Commission had unconditionally approved its acquisition of the shares of Copenhagen Airports. Its shares closed unchanged at $3.11.
The most traded stock was Oriel Communications, which on Monday announced a deal to supply Shanghai TTS with its bill-to-bill payments system, with 42.65 million shares worth $726,647 changing hands. The stock moved up 0.1c to 1.5c.