ignores Wall St, takes a dive

Local shares ended lower despite a record high on Wall Street the night before, as banking and financial stocks weakened.
The ASX200 index closed 29.7 points lower at 5281.3 while the All Ordinaries fell 24.7 to 5251.7.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the December share price index contract slumped 49 to 5282, on a volume of 14,367.
"Generally speaking, the majority of the weakness is in the banking sector and the financials," ABN Amro Morgans dealer Trent Muller said, suggesting interest rate nerves or profit-taking as possible causes.
Among the banks, the Commonwealth slumped 67c to $46.33, NAB dropped 37c to $37.48, Westpac shed 23c to $22.88 and ANZ slid 16c to $27.64.
But Macquarie Bank gained 55c to $71.05, after announcing it was part of a consortium that has acquired the UK's largest water company, Thames Water, for $8 billion ($19.8 billion).
Mr Muller said that while resource stocks had pulled back yesterday, they may provide some positive trading today.
"They haven't been that strong given that most base metal prices were up last night but if base metals are flat to slightly positive tonight, we could see a bit of a boost out of resources tomorrow," he said.
BHP Billiton was up just 2c at $27.37, while rival Rio Tinto gained 23c to $75.52.
US stocks rose on Monday, pushing the Dow to an all-time high just three points shy of 12,000, amid positive assessments of the economy and an advance in energy shares, boosted by a jump in oil prices.
Mr Muller said Telstra was continuing to weaken, ending 7c lower at $3.57.
Media mogul of the moment James Packer's PBL has gone into a trading halt pending an announcement. The shares last traded at $19.85.
"Most people assume it's linked to the potential asset sales of their news and media investments," Mr Muller said. "That's due to come back on the market potentially as late as Thursday."
Other media were mixed, Fairfax firming 6c to $4.54, News Corp rising 22c to $28.88 but its non-voters fell 7c to $27.53.
Spot gold in Sydney finished $US4.90 higher at $US596.40 per fine ounce.
Lihir Gold ended down 13c at $2.98, after the Papua New Guinea miner snapped up smaller Victorian rival Ballarat Goldfields for $350 million, saying it wanted a foothold in Australia. Ballarat ended the day 4.5c higher at 27c.
Fellow Victorian goldminer Bendigo was up a zack to $1.045 on trade of 9.7 million shares.
Retailers had a generally negative day, Woolworths dropping 16c to $20.68, while rival Coles Myer shed 3c to $14.14. David Jones was up 1c at $3.74.
Interest of 15.5 million shares traded kicked plastics company Nylex up 0.7c to 6.5c.
The most traded stock of the day was IC2 Global, which ended the day steady at 0.1c, with 73.75 million shares worth $73,965 changing hands.
The company had been suspended for failure to lodge its annual accounts. IC2 Global develops telecom products and services for heavy users.
Preliminary market turnover for the day was 1.61 billion shares worth a combined $4.86 billion with 546 stocks moving up, 560 moving down and 344 unchanged.