At noon on Tuesday the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 41.3 points, or 0.59 per cent, to 7005.6, having briefly dropped under 7000 near to the open.
The broader All Ordinaries was down 42.5 points, or 0.56 per cent, to 7246.2.
Sectors were mixed with energy, mining, tech and utilities gaining ground and the seven other official ASX sectors losing it.
Woodside had gained 1.8 per cent to $33.61 and coalminers Whitehaven and New Hope were both up another two per cent as Saudi Arabia warned OPEC could cut output to correct a recent drop in oil prices. Brent crude was up 0.8 per cent to $US97.27 a barrel.
The heavyweight mining sector was up 0.9 per cent, with BHP advancing 1.3 per cent, Fortescue Metals up 0.6 per cent and Rio Tinto up 0.2 per cent.
Dan Murphy and BWS owner Endeavour Group had fallen 10.8 per cent to $7.375 despite delivering a better-than-expected $495 million full-year profit, up 11.3 per cent from the year before.
Woolworths was down 1.3 per cent and Coles had fallen 1.7 per cent.
All the big banks were lower, with CBA falling by 0.8 per cent and the others down by between 1.3 and 1.5 per cent.
Scentre Group had risen by 3.4 per cent to $2.875 after the Westfield owner announced its half-year operating profit had risen 17.6 per cent to $540.5 million.
Chief executive Peter Allen said occupancy was at 98.8 per cent, up 30 basis points from a year ago, and rents had increased by $5 a square metre to $827 per square metre.
Meanwhile Kogan.com announced a statutory full-year loss of $35.5 million, with founder and chief executive Ruslan Kogan admitting that "we were wrong" in betting that booming e-commerce sales during the pandemic wouldn't slow and investing too much in inventory.
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