The Australian share market opened lower again this morning as US stocks spent another day in the red on Tuesday.

However the banking sector helped stem early losses as bargain hunters snapped up the beaten-down banking stocks, and at midday the S&P/ASX200 index was up by four points, while the All Ordinaries had slipped nine.

Meanwhile Wall Street lost ground again on Tuesday amid continued fears over the stability of the economy. However a sharp drop in oil prices gave some hope to investors and helped the Dow Jones recover slightly from its two-year low.

At the close the blue chip index was still down by 92 points, while the tech heavy Nasdaq added two.

In Asian trading today, Japan’s Nikkei was down 73 points at midday and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng had fallen 131.

In ASX news today, shares in retailer Woolworths were boosted by as much as five per cent this morning after Woolies reported fourth quarter sales of $11.4 billion; up 7.5 per cent on last year.

Woolworths, whose petrol retailing joint-venture has benefitted from the recent record fuel prices, also reaffirmed its full year profit forecast. The supermarket chain expects net profit growth for fiscal 2008 of between 21 and 25 per cent.

There was good news today too for shareholders of troubled property investor Rubicon America Trust. The Allco-Finance-managed group announced the sale of a US$515 million property portfolio to New York-based UrbanAmerica.

Rubicon said the sale price was more than $6 million higher than the portfolio valuation in June, and was expected to generate proceeds of about $90 million. Rubicon will use the proceeds to reduce debt commitments. Shares in the Trust were up more than seven per cent at noon today.

Finally, Australian economic growth slowed in May, according to figures released today by the Westpac Melbourne Institute. The index put May’s growth at 2.1 per cent, down from 2.6 per cent in April.

Westpac’s Chief Economist Bill Evans said the result was consistent with a continued economic slowdown through 2008 and into 2009, in line with the Reserve Bank’s recent forecasts.

In individual share price movements on the ASX this morning the major resource stocks all fell on lower oil and metals prices. At midday, BHP Billiton was down 73 cents, Fortescue Metals fell 32, Rio Tinto lost $2.70, while Woodside Petroleum dropped $1.63.

The major banks reversed yesterday’s losses though. At noon ANZ was up 41 cents, Commonwealth Bank gained 70, National Australia Bank put on 39 cents, while Westpac added 46.

Other blue chips also followed the banks higher. AMP added eight cents, News Corp put on 30, Telstra gained two cents, while Woolworths surged 86.