The Australian sharemarket is a sea of red today as concerns about Greece's debt situation continue to weigh on the market's confidence.
Greece is facing an extremely tough week as it tries to negotiate with creditors to extend it more money to enable it to avoid defaulting, and thus remain in the Eurozone. While Greek officials are adamant that a deal is just around the corner, investors aren't so confident with the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) ((ASX: XJO) and ALL ORDINARIES (Index: ^AXAO) (ASX: XAO) following Wall Street lower, falling 1.5% and 1.4% respectively.
The market's confidence is also down as a result of poor expectations of another official interest rate cut tomorrow. Shares rocketed higher on Friday following weak business expenditure data (which some speculated may have been enough to sway the Reserve Bank of Australia towards further easing), but the consensus forecast amongst economists is that interest rates will remain at their current level of 2 percent.
This had a negative effect on each of Australia's big four banks, each of which had acted as a driving force behind Friday's rally. Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) has fallen 1.8% while Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ASX: ANZ) and National Australia Bank Ltd. (ASX: NAB) dipped 1.6% and 1.9%, respectively. Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) was the biggest casualty among the Big Four, falling 2%.
The nation's miners were also acting as a drag on the market after the price of iron ore fell 0.8% in its latest session, according to the Metal Bulletin. With further falls expected, BHP Billiton Limited (ASX: BHP), Rio Tinto Limited (ASX: RIO) and Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX: FMG) have all dropped between 1.7% and 2.5%.
Of course, there has been plenty of pain felt outside the banking and mining sectors with big-name companies such as Woolworths Limited (ASX: WOW), Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES) and Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) also trading deep in the red-zone. Given that these all represent Australia's biggest and most widely-held companies, very few investors are likely to escape today's session unscathed.