Commodity prices fall, drag down sharemarket

The sharemarket closed in negative territory on Friday with the big miners dragging the bourse into the red.
The benchmark ASX 200 index was down 12.8 points at 5572.0 at the close and the All Ordinaries lost 14.1 points to 5549.8. The ASX 200 was off 97.9 points, or 1.72 per cent, against the previous Friday's close and the All Ords was down 94.5 points, or 1.67 per cent.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the March share price index contract was 15 points lower at 5561, on a volume of 10,865 contracts.
Macquarie Equities client adviser David Halliday said falls in commodity prices weighed on the big miners.
"It has been a bit of a topsy-turvy week," he said. "The market has been dominated by big falls across the board in commodity prices. It is unusual to get the oil price, gold price and base metals prices all following each other down, and we have had that over the last two days. That has definitely weighed on our market.
"The market tried to buck that trend earlier this morning - BHP and Rio made some ground up but they have given it all back in the afternoon and that has led the market lower."
Of the big miners, BHP Billiton shed 23c to $24.14 and Rio Tinto lost $1.09 to $70.30.
The US provided a flat lead with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 6.17 points to 12,480.69, the Standard & Poor's 500 index picking up 1.74 points to 1418.34 and the Nasdaq adding 30.27 points to 2453.43.
Locally, the energy sector was mixed after a drop in the oil price, with Santos adding 5c to $9.65, Woodside retreating 69c to $35.96 and Oil Search losing 8c to $3.25.
Biotech group Benitec surged 20.4c, or 224 per cent, to 29.5c after announcing it had granted pharmaceutical major Pfizer a worldwide non-exclusive research licence to use its DNA technology. Benitec was also the most traded stock with 50 million shares changing hands, collectively worth $12.7 million.
General insurer QBE jumped $1.30 to $29.70 after acquiring US-based property and casualty insurer Winterthur US Holdings for $US1.16 billion ($1.47 billion).
Retail fashion group Noni B rose 15c to $4.55 after announcing an 8.5 per cent lift in first-half sales revenue to $65.8 million.
The banks were fractionally weaker, with National Australia Bank dropping 1c to $40, ANZ 30c to $28, Commonwealth 26c to $48.74 and Westpac 21c to $23.80.
The goldminers were mixed with Newmont adding 10c to $5.69, Newcrest losing 47c to $25.09 and Lihir pulling back 9c to $2.92.