Owing to the sharp falls on the US Wall Street on Friday night as well as fall in commodity prices, the Australian share market closed substantially lower - with the All Ordinaries index plunging
100.6 points to 4546.3, and the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index falling 102.8 points to 4540.4.

With the local stock market opening the trading day 2.69 per cent weaker, and the Australian dollar trading at US90.33c, Adam Carr - senior economist at ICAP Australia - opined that the huge falls in the US would expectedly result in a rather hard week for Australian shares.

Carr commented: "You would really need to see some fairly significant data in Australia to break free from Wall Street this week, and we are just not going to see that."

Though the local bourse trimmed back some of its losses during the beginning of the day, the close of the trade saw both the major indices drifting to a further low on Monday, largely due to the banking and resources stocks, other than Woodside Petroleum which stood out from the rest on a high.

Carr is of the opinion that in case the falls continue in US trade tonight also, the Reserve Bank of Australia's interest rate decision on Tuesday - which is being widely expected to increase 25 basis points - might not be enough to enhance the local market situation.