At 12.00pm (AEST), the benchmark S&P/ASX200 was down 55.2 points to 3651.1, a fall of 1.49 per cent, while the broader All Ordinaries declined 51.6 points, 1.41 per cent to 3596.9.
Losses on the Australian market followed falls in the US overnight, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 186.29 points, or 2.34 per cent, to finish at 7789.56.
Senior client adviser with Austock Securities, Michael Heffernan, said the Australian market dropped after big falls on Wall Street, but was a better performance so far.
"Given the 2 per cent plus falls over there in the US, close to three per cent, declining only 1.5-1.7 per cent is a pretty workman-like performance, I would think,'' Mr Heffernan said.
Resources were mixed.
BHP Billiton was down 56 cents to $32.14, a fall of 1.71 per cent.
Rio Tinto shares rebounded a little after Tuesday's ten per cent fall, however. At 1206 AEST, Rio was trading at $53.51, up 33 cents, after the miner told the ASX it was committed to delivering a partnership with the Aluminium Corporation of China (Chinalco).
Banking stocks mostly fell.
At 12.10pm, ANZ was down 33 cents to $16.67, Commonwealth Bank had fallen 90 cents to $35.42, the NAB was off 91 cents to $22.15 but Westpac was 5 cents higher at $20.35.
"The banks are getting clobbered given the decline of financial stocks in the US rather than, I think, the interest rate decision yesterday,'' Mr Heffernan said.
"I think you could expect them to resume the upward momentum that we have seen over the last month,'' he said.
Retailers were down by 12.13pm, with Woolworths off 14 cents to $25.43, Wesfarmers down 66 cents to $18.58, David Jones falling 6 cents, to $2.86 and Harvey Norman down one cent to $2.76.
Media companies were down, too.
Fairfax shares fell 6 cents to $1.065, a drop of 5.33 per cent.
News Corporation (the parent company of the publisher of news.com.au) was down 40 cents to $11.67.
Consolidated Media shares fell one cent to $1.99.
Mr Heffernan said the falls in the media sector were probably related to recent data showing a reduction in the number of job advertisement surveys.
"Fairfax in particular is getting knocked around a lot,'' he said.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the June share price index contract was trading 82 points lower to 3658 on a volume of 12,895 contracts.
Share market gains ground
