News: XEJ Banks, gold stocks lead Australian stocks lower on US debt ceiling woes

	  AXJO falls on risk averse sentiment  

	  Tyro Payments slumps on withdrawal of bid from Potentia  

	  Tech, energy stocks offset some losses  

(Updates to close)

Australian shares declined on Monday, dragged lower by the financials and gold indexes, as risk sentiment turned sour after negotiations to reach a deal for the U.S. debt ceiling approached the eleventh hour after halting last week.

The S&P/ASX 200 index (xjo) finished 0.2% lower to 7,263.3 points. The benchmark had risen 0.6% on Friday.

Negotiations to raise the U.S. debt limit were stalled on Friday as the world's largest economy moved closer to the deadline for avoiding default.

"We did get a negative lead from the U.S. over the debt ceiling negotiations and that has kind of flagged that our market is going to be pretty much flat," Mathan Somasundaram, chief executive officer at Deep Data Analytics said.

U.S. President Joe Biden and his Republican counterpart Kevin McCarthy will meet later in the global day to resume talks, with a June 1 deadline looming in less than two weeks to arrive at a conclusion.

Investors fear that a failure to raise the debt ceiling will trigger an economic recession in the U.S., which could send interest rates spiralling higher.

Back in Australia, the bank index .AXFJ led the laggards in the benchmark index, losing about 0.6%, with the country's largest banks falling between 0.7% and 0.9%.

The gold index .AXGD followed suit, slipping 0.5%, with sector majors Newcrest Mining (NCM) and Northern Star Resources (NST) trading 0.2% and 1.1% lower.

In corporate news, payments terminal firm Tyro Payments (TYR) slumped nearly 20% after private equity firm Potential Capital ended its discussions to buy the company.

On the bright side, domestic technology stocks .AXIJ countered some losses, rising about 1.5%, with accounting software provider Xero Ltd (XRO) gaining about 1.1%.

Additionally, energy .AXEJ and healthcare .AXHJ firmed about 1% and 0.5% respectively.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index (nz50) fell about 0.9% to finish the session at 11,993 points.

($1 = 1.4743 Australian dollars)