Australian stock market closes down

The Australian sharemarket weakened for a second successive day, with low oil prices hitting the energy sector.

At the market close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 18 points, or 0.33 percent, at 5,404.7 points, while the wider All Ordinaries index was down 17.4 points, or 0.32 percent, at 5,382.1 points.

Energy shares led the market down, falling 1.7 percent.

Santos lost 1.1 percent, Woodside fell 1.7 percent, Origin Energy declined 2.7 percent and Karoon Gas tumbled 6 percent.

Big players BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto lost 1.9 percent to 27. 97 AU dollars (below the 28 AU dollars threshold once again) and 1. 8 percent to 57.46 AU dollars, respectively.

All the big four banks except Westpac (+0.2 per cent) closed in the red, with CBA losing 0.4 percent, ANZ falling 0.2 percent and NAB dropping 0.3 percent.

A positive day was had for Telstra, which gained 1.2 percent, and Wesfarmers, which rose 0.1 percent.

The market leader was gold miner Evolution Mining, which soared 9 percent thanks to the precious metal's price hitting a new two- month high. Fellow gold miner Newcrest rose 3.7 percent.

Small iron ore miners took a beating Tuesday, with Mount Gibson plummeting 11.3 percent, Atlas Iron slumping 11.1 percent and BC Iron losing 6.9 percent.

Elsewhere, investors continued to punish Cardno after it announced CEO Michael Renshaw would step down. The company's stock has lost over 21 percent since the announcement Monday afternoon. Endi