Wall Street worries drag down ASX

The sharemarket was in the doldrums yesterday, taking its cue from a miserable Wall Street ahead of the US Federal Reserve's interest rate decision later this week.
Shares were lower across the board, led by the resources and banking sectors. The ASX200 fell 52.4 points to 4946.8 while the All Ordinaries closed down 48.4 at 4909.2.
At the close of day trading on the Sydney Futures Exchange, the September share price index had weakened 43 to 4937.
ABN Amro Morgans private client adviser Bill Bishop said local investors had convinced themselves that Wall Street had priced in the expected interest rate rise but this had turned out not to be the case.
"People are just a bit edgy and it doesn't take much for them to start selling," he said.
"That's been brought about by the volatility of the sharemarket over the last six weeks."
US stocks lost more than 1 per cent on Tuesday, amid uncertainty about interest rates.
The Federal Reserve is expected to lift rates by 0.25 to 5.25 per cent today but there are suggestions it might make a more dramatic 0.5 point rise.
The Dow Jones industrial average had lost 120.5 points to 10,924.74 on Tuesday.
Yesterday, market leader BHP Billiton gave up 77c to $27.33 while fellow resources giant Rio Tinto shed $2.89 to $74.31.
In the energy sector, Origin Energy put on 11c to $6.95 after scrapping a planned merger with its NZ subsidiary Contact Energy.
Woodside was down 20c at $4.80, Oil Search off 13c at $3.80 and Santos down 3c at $11.42. Mauritanian partner Hardman's climb back to grace was interrupted; it fell 4c to $1.655.
AGL fell 18c to $17.82 after sticking to its forecast of a $408 million net profit for 2005-06.
The big banks were mixed. ANZ slipped 27c to $25.93 and the Commonwealth eased 27c to $43.29. NAB and Westpac were steady at $34.39 and $22.45.
Investment house Macquarie Bank shed $1.21 to $68.05. The Macquarie-led consortium planning a tilt at Hong Kong telecom PCCW could hand over the digital media assets to News Corp, according to market speculation.
News Corp shares fell 25c to $26.60, while its non-voters fell the same amount to $25.25.
Among other media stocks, PBL gained 6c to $17.45 while Fairfax fell 1c to $3.60.
Seven Network improved 2c to $7.99 after unveiling plans to move production to new $120 million studios in Redfern.
Telco Telstra edged up 2c to $3.69 while Optus owner SingTel held steady at $2.13.
Qantas dipped 3c to $2.93 while Virgin Blue hovered at $1.55.
Diversified manufacturer GUD Holdings shed 8c to $7.90 while rival GWA was down 6c at $3.08.
The spot price of gold in Sydney was $US582.75, down $US7.50 on Tuesday's close.
The gold miners were also lower. Newcrest dropped 45c to $19.65 and Newmont shrank 8c to $6.75. Lihir Gold was down 13c at $2.69.
The top traded stock by volume was petroleum and gas explorer Empire Oil & Gas, with 37.18 million shares valued at $221,090 changing hands. Empire shares lost 0.1c to 0.5c.
Turnover on the market was 1.07 billion shares worth $3.78 billion, and 648 stocks fell, 451 stocks rose and 393 were unchanged yesterday.