ASX down on financials; Beach Energy rallies as Suncorp slides

Banks and tech stocks drag ASX down. Suncorp tumbles on 'climate' downgrade, Star 'not suitable' for licence, building approvals decline and crude oil hits three-month high.

Trading may be subdued in local trading with Wall Street closed for a public holiday. Picture: Christian Gilles / NCA NewsWire

Welcome to the Trading Day blog for Tuesday, May 31. The Australian share market erases strong gains on Monday as rising oil prices and US bond yields, together with hawkish comments from FOMC's Waller overnight threaten to damp the recent rebound on Wall Street.

The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 1 per cent to 7211.20 with all sectors in the red led by financials. The All Ordinaries dropped 0.9 per cent to 7455.2.

Wall Street was closed for Memorial day, while stocks in Europe and Asia advanced overnight and crude oil jumped amid an expected relaxation of some Covid-19 related restrictions in China including in Shanghai.

Global oil prices also climbed to a two-month high amid a renewed push by European leaders to ban most of Russian oil imports. US Nymex crude oil was 1.8 per cent higher to $US117.18 a barrel and Brent crude rose 1.9 per cent to $US121.67 a barrel.

Iron ore futures gained 19 cents, or 0.1 per cent, to $US133.6 a tonne and the Australian dollar was trading around US71.95c.