The Australian sharemarket has wiped out all last week's modest gains after just a few hours of trade this morning. The All Ordinaries index (XAO) is down 1.1 pct or 52.1 pts to 4906.5. Virtually all sectors are trading lower with the miners currently the biggest drag.

The creator of the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Apple (AAPL;us) shares rose slightly on Friday night ahead of the unveiling of the iPad 2 in the U.S on Friday this week. There have also been reports out that AAPL is trying to negotiate with music companies to get unlimited music downloads for customers.

China said it will increase its defence spending by 12.7 pct to $91.5 billion. Although this might sound substantial to readers, keep in mind that based on these official figures, the United States still spends around seven times more on its military than China does. In fact, the U.S spends more on defence than the top twenty global economies do combined.

The world's largest miner, BHP Billiton (BHP) is down 1.63 pct or 77 cents to $46.48 after the stock went ex-dividend today for its 45.8 cents a share dividend scheduled to be paid on March 31. The country's second largest listed miner, RIO Tinto (RIO) is also down 1.63 pct or $1.39 to $84.13.

The big banks are pulling back with the four largest financial institutions in the country down between 0.93 pct to 1.5 pct.

There is still a substantial amount of focus on the oil price, which has gained around 23 pct over the past three weeks. We will have the Australian Institute of Petroleum (AIP), releasing the most recent national average petrol price (at petrol stations) today.

Australia's media group, Nine Entertainment sold its 49.1 pct stake in Carsales.com (CRZ), the online automotive classifieds business. Nine is said to have sold the shares to a range of institutional investors. CRZ shares are down 4.01 pct or 21 cents to $5.03.

A whole heap of companies are going ex-dividend today, including BHP, Brambles (BXB), which is the world's largest pallet operator, Australia's largest travel agent, Flightcentre (FLT) and logistics company, TOLL Holdings (TOL), are all weaker by more than their dividend payments per share.

On the economic front, the number of job advertisements on the internet and in Australian newspapers rose by 1.2 pct in February. Ads in newspapers increased a more substantial 4.4 pct over the month, while internet job ads rose by 1 pct according to the ANZ report this morning.

Asian markets are mostly lower at lunch with Japan's Nikkei 225 index down by 1.45 pct or 155.14 pts to 10538.52, Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 0.41 pct or 96.07 pts to 23312.79 while China's Shanghai Composite index is managing to gain by 1.06 pct or 31.18 pt to 2973.35.

On the economic front out of Asia today, Japan's Cabinet Office will release its leading indicators for January. The reading is designed to predict the direction of the economy, however does not tend to have a huge impact on the market as most of the data it uses has already been released to the market.

A whole heap of economic data will be released out of China over the coming days.

Most major Asian markets trade in two separate sessions each day with a generous break in between. This includes Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong markets.

The Australian dollar (AUD) is weaker when compared to Friday and buys US101.3 cents.

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