The Australian sharemarket is off by 0.2pct or 10.8pts to 4666.1 being led lower by weakness in both our largest banks and miners. Tensions between North and South Korea have been putting pressure on commodities and markets globally over the last 24 hours. Chinese stocks are also trading around 6 week lows with concerns that their government will be taking additional steps to keep inflation under control and thus slowing down the economy.

The miners are trading flat, however both BHP Billiton (BHP) and RIO Tinto (RIO) are still off slightly. Our gold producers are trading higher thanks to gains in the price of the precious metal overnight and Australia's largest oil and gas producers are trading positive.

Telstra (TLS) is performing strongly once again today with the Federal Government's bill to reduce TLS's power looking unlikely to be passed by the upper house. TLS is up 0.73pct or 2cents to $2.76.

Clothing and equipment retailer, Kathmandu Holdings (KMD) is up 4.62pct or 5.5cents to $1.245 after holding their Annual General Meeting (AGM) today which showed that group sales for the first 16 weeks of the year rose by more than 9pct to $51.6 million. KMD has also said that their refurbishment program is still on track however has admitted that retail conditions are still on the challenging side for the retailer.

Two of the big four banks managed to creep into positive territory in early afternoon trade, however all the majors are currently trading slightly negative.

The Australian dollar is still weaker than it was 24 hours ago however has been strengthening over the last few hours with a South Korean retaliation looking more unlikely. The Australian dollar now buys US97.9c.