Stock market hits three-week low

The loss was blamed partly on mixed jobs data coming out of the US that caused Wall Street shares to take a dive off the back of interest rate uncertainty.

Six of 11 ASX200 markets declined, with healthcare dropping the most, followed by financials and materials.

Pharmaceutical company CSL fell 1.1 per cent and medical product supplier ResMed lost 4.2 per cent, continuing on from some disappointing losses last week.

Real estate enjoyed gains during the session, while clean lithium developer Lake Resources was the hardest hit, finishing down 18.6 per cent as investors cast doubt in whether the company can produce as much of the metal as it claims.

Heavyweight financials ANZ and Westpac also suffered, down 0.5-0.6 per cent.

Suncorp too dropped 2.5 per cent as ANZ appeals an ACCC block of their attempt to fold Suncorp into their banking division — a deal worth $4.9bn.

Sky News Business Reporter Edward Boyd says it was a subdued day of trading, likely due to the bank holiday in NSW.

He says lithium-ion battery makers Lithium Australia saw a hefty surge during trade, after signing a deal with Mineral Resources.

“[They’ve] agreed to partner up to build a lithium processing plant, with [Lithium Australia] shares absolutely skyrocketing today — up 67 per cent,” he said.

“They are only 6c a share though.”

Trade opened down 0.2 per cent on Monday morning after the ASX 200 finished Friday’s trade at 7325.3.

The index has lost 1.28 per cent for the last five days, but sits 3.42 per cent below its 52-week high.

A big winner in Monday’s trading was Mitre Mining Corp (MMC) rising by 7.2 per cent to $0.295 at the close of trade.

It comes off the back of the company announcing their initial field work at their Mount Alexander lithium project, in Western Australia, has identified multiple pegmatite swarms.

CommSec economist Tom Piotrowski says investors will be keeping an eye on a number of key market indicators released in coming days.

“[Tuesday] we’ll have the NAB’s measure of business confidence, we’ll have Wesptac’s monthly consumer sentiment measures,” Mr Piotrowski says.

“Then over the back end of the week we’ll have Chinese inflation numbers, US inflation numbers, so quite a lot to unpack.”

CBA results are also announced on Wednesday.

Originally published as Market wrap: ASX 200 down at the close, thanks to mixed US jobs data