Stocks were low across the boards. Iron ore miners led the declines after another fall in the ore's price overnight. The banks took a hit. CBA lost 2%. The exception today were gold mining stocks. 

 

Across the region, Japan's Nikkei fell 0.9%. And the Australian Dollar is falling steeply against the greenback ahead of the European session, right now at 87.5 US cents. 

 

Nauru's finance minister says the country is out of money and services will soon start shutting down. Nauru has refused to pay a debt to a US-based fund manager Firebird which has now blowned to 13 million dollars. The government's bank accounts have been frozen as a result. Nauru is seeking to urgently free up the funds. The country's finance minister told the New South Wales Supreme Court that the island will shortly run out of cash, meaning it won't be able to transport health, legal and other contractors to the detention center and that will impact refugees. The trial surrounding the fund starts on Monday.