Australian shares are slightly down, with the market slowing after three days in positive territory.

The market opened higher after Wall Street was boosted by better-than-expected earnings from multinational bank Citigroup overnight, with the Dow Jones index rising 0.66 per cent.

IG market strategist Evan Lucas said the Australian market was ahead of global trading in terms of positive moves but was beginning to hit some resistance.

“It was a good start this morning, but we’re running out of puff,” he told AAP.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if we slipped into the slightly negatives as the banks slip further.”

The major banks were mostly down, with Commonwealth Bank falling 41 cents to $81.30, Westpac losing eight cents to $34.06, ANZ down 28 cents to $33.26 but NAB bucked the trend gaining two cents to reach $33.86.

The big miners were all up as BHP Billiton climbed four cents at $37.90, Rio Tinto lifted 52.5 cents to $62.85 and Fortescue Metals Group jumped eight cents to $4.32.

Gold miners all suffered after gold prices had their worst day so far in 2014 with Newcrest Mining shedding 17 cents to $10.93.

Mining companies Oz Minerals and Whitehaven Coal had a varied morning on the back of mixed production data, with Oz Minerals falling eight cents to $4.23 while Whitehaven added six cents to reach $1.54.

Oz Minerals lifted its full year copper production target but warned gold production would be at the lower end of its forecast while Whitehaven reached record production levels.

Energy provider SP AusNet fell 1.5 cents to $1.35 after agreeing to pay $500 million to survivors of Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires.

The class action settlement – the largest in Australian history – follows claims faulty equipment ignited the Kilmore East/King Lake bushfire in February 2009.

KEY FACTS

* At 1200 AEST on Tuesday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 2.4 points, or 0.04 per cent, lower at 5494.7.

* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 1.1 points, or 0.02 per cent, at 5,509.

* The September share price index futures contract was 19 points lower at 5452 with 11,179 contracts traded.

* National turnover was 745 million securities worth $1.4 billion.