Australian exchanges

BRISBANE: The Australian sharemarket gave up its early gains and lost ground as investors turned cautious ahead of the United States central bank’s monetary policy decision.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index dropped by 7 points, or 0.12% to 5713.6 points, after being 0.3% higher in early trade.

Strong gains in the telco sector were outweighed by weakness in most other sectors, most notably property.

The Australian dollar fell from US79.87c to a low of US79.62c but recovered in afternoon trade to be at US79.90c.

On the sharemarket, TPG Telecom rose 5.2% to $5.49 after its annual profit rose 9% and Telstra gained 1.1% to $3.65.

Among the four major banks, Commonwealth Bank was the weakest performer, down 0.5% and its three rivals were relatively steady.

Miners also gave up their early gains but remained in positive territory, with BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals gaining between 0.1% and 0.6%.

In the real estate sector, Goodman Group dropped 2.15% to $8.18, GPT Group fell 2% to $4.96 and Mirvac was 1.7% weaker at $2.26.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 was down 7 points, or 0.12%, at 5713.6 points.

The broader All Ordinaries index was down 6.6 points, or 0.11%, at 5772.4 points.

National turnover was 3.2 billion securities traded worth $5.3 billion. — AAP