Australian shares fell for a fifth-straight day on Wednesday, pulled down by materials and telecom stocks with Telstra Corp Ltd (TLS) slumping after going ex-dividend, as investors awaited U.S. President Donald Trump's address to Congress.
"There is a cautious tone to trade today and the reason for that is the potential game changing speech, that will come in the middle of the trading session, from President Trump," said Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist with CMC Markets.
The S&P/ASX 200 index (xjo) fell 17.4 points or 0.3 percent to 5,694.8 by 0103 GMT. The benchmark is on track to post its longest streak of losses sinch June 2016.
"Markets are hungry for details on the new administration's economic policy, but at the end of the day (they) will probably be prepared to settle for a confident outlining of the general agenda at this stage," said Ric Spooner, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, in a note.
Australia's largest telecom company by market value, Telstra was the biggest drag, falling as much as 4.2 percent to hit its lowest in more than 3-1/2 years.
Global miners BHP Billiton (BHP) and Rio Tinto (RIO) fell 0.6 percent to 1.2 percent on the back of weaker iron ore prices overnight.
Chinese steel and iron ore futures fell nearly 3 percent on Tuesday amid reports that the country's top economic planner was investigating the recent surge in futures markets.[IRONORE/]
The gold index .AXGD was dull for a third-straight session, sliding 2.1 percent as the bullion price turned lower on Tuesday. Newcrest Mining (NCM) led declines, shedding as much as 2.3 percent to hit a one-month low.
Among other stocks, Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd (HVN) was down 6.2 percent, while Crown Resorts Ltd (CWN) fell 2.6 percent.
At the other end, the financial index .AXFJ was trading 0.2 percent firmer after the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported gross domestic product (GDP) climbed 1.1 percent in the fourth quarter.
The data beat market forecasts and was a welcome recovery from the third quarter's shock 0.5 percent decline - the first quarterly contraction for the economy since 2011, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.(http://bit.ly/2mI9FLg)
Regis Healthcare (REG) rose 3 percent and was among the top gainers on the index.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the benchmark by a 1.8-to-1 ratio.
New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index (nz50) fell 0.2 percent or 16.02 points to 7,151.44.
Fletcher Building (FBU) and Spark New Zealand (SPK) were among the biggest decliners, dropping 0.6 percent and 0.8 percent respectively.
Sky Network Television (SKT) was trading flat after it said it will not yet cancel its agreement to buy Vodafone's New Zealand unit
after the country's competition regulator rejected the proposal.
