Buyer fatigue takes toll on ASX

PROFIT takers closed in on the Australian sharemarket yesterday, following the same action on overseas markets, but the local bourse still remains at nine-month highs.

The S&P/ASX200 closed 0.8 per cent lower at 6636 while the All Ordinaries Index fell 0.6 per cent to 6849. Thinkmarkets Australia analyst Carl Capolingua said the market slowly and gradually declined from the open.

“But I don’t think many were expecting this to be another up day,” Mr Capolingua said. “Talking with clients, there does appear to be a bit of buyer fatigue kicking in here.

“The conversations I’ve had over the last few days have morphed from ‘Wow, this is fantastic’ to ‘OK, so what’s still cheap?’ It’s been getting harder and harder to answer.

“We’ve had a really fantastic run and it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing to see a pullback here. It will allow those who are still waiting to allocate capital to do so at more attractive prices.”

Commsec analyst Tom Piotrowski said markets had done well this month and investors were “doing their very best to consolidate on the improvements that we have seen in recent times”.

Financials were sold off after strong gains this month. ANZ slid 1.73 per cent to $23.25, Commonwealth Bank gave up 1.55 per cent to $81.09, National Australia Bank backtracked 2.37 per cent to $23.48 and Westpac shed 1.34 per cent to $20.61.

Energy stocks, which have performed strongly as encouraging COVID-19 vaccine trial results spur hope of economic recovery, were also sold down.