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By Aditya Soni
March 26 (Reuters) - Australian shares tumbled to a nearfive and a half month low on Monday, following a sharp fall onWall Street, as fears about a potential
The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.6 percent or 33.5points to 5,787.2 by 0042 GMT. The benchmark dived about 2percent on Friday.
The gyrations in
"Markets can price risk but they can't price uncertainty,and there is a lot of uncertainty created with regards to thesemoves with tariffs and trade wars."
Mirroring a fall in
Banks, which accounted for most of the losses on thebenchmark, have also been under pressure from a government-backed Royal Commission enquiry into misconduct by financialinstitutions.
The country's top banks routinely and repeatedly breachedlaws when issuing home loans, credit cards and other consumerloans, the first round of hearings was told.
"The Royal Commission is very damaging to sentiment and itwould appear that the Commonwealth Bank has the most to answerto so they have already started to move on executive changes,"added McGlew.
Commonwealth Bank of
Wealth manager AMP Ltd dipped 1.7 percent to itslowest since Feb. 8. It said Chief Executive Craig Mellerintended to retire around the end of 2018.
Fears of a trade war also hit commodities prices, leading toa weakness in materials stocks, especially miners. BHP,the world's biggest miner, slipped 0.7 percent, while BlueScopeSteel Ltd fell about 2 percent.
However, safe-haven buying led to a rise in gold prices,boosting gold miners. Newcrest Mining Ltd climbed 2.1percent to a near two-week high.
Across the Tasman Sea,
Consumer staples and healthcare stocks led the losses, witha2 Milk Company Ltd plunging 4 percent to its lowest inaround 2 1/2 weeks. Ryman Healthcare Ltd slipped 1.7percent.
(Reporting by Aditya Soni in BengaluruEditing by Eric Meijer)
