Australian market opens down on Monday amidst uncertainty

The Australian share market has taken a tumble on Monday, opening sharply down on the back of uncertainty after U.S. President Donald Trump's latest wave executive orders were executed over the weekend.

AT 1015 local time AEDT, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was 35.7 points lower, or 0.62 percent, to sit at 5,678.3; while the broader All Ordinaries also lost ground to be down 34.5 points, or 0.6 percent, to 5,731.1.

Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets told Xinhua, the Australian market was reacting to the global uncertainty created by Trump's actions over the weekend.

"The market is a little bit nervous at the news of the US immigration policy over the weekend," Spooner said.

"It doesn't have any impact financially or commercially in terms of costs, but it does unsettle the market in terms of the potential of escalating and retaliation - and we've begun a bit of risk adjustment on this."

The banks were weaker on today's open, with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia down 0.86 percent, the ANZ also fell, down 0.77 percent, the National Australia Bank lost 0.96 percent and Westpac fell a full 1.05 percent.

The miners were hit and miss this morning, Newcrest gained 0.894 percent after releasing their production reports for the December quarter, Rio Tinto was down 1.43 percent, and BHP Billiton also lost 1 percent in this morning's trade.

Santos had a bad start, down 0.86 percent, Oil Search also struggled, down 1.29 percent, while Woodside Petroleum fell 0.87 percent.

Grocery giant Woolworths slipped this morning, down 0.91 percent, while rivals Wesfarmers also felt the pinch, down 0.54 percent.

Aussie iconic airline Qantas was down 0.57 percent, while telco leader Telstra also dipped, down 0.98 percent in trade. Endit