Weak offshore leads didn’t bode well for the Australian share market, which opened in negative territory but managed a few short-lived peaks throughout the session.

Job figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed total job vacancies in February fell 6% from November 2012 to 155,300.

More than 1% falls in the oil and gas and basic materials sectors weighed on the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index, which closed 0.6% or 28.5 points lower to 4966.5 points.

Gold heavyweight Newcrest Mining posted its biggest fall since November 2008 after reducing its production guidance.

Newcrest shed 8.3% or $A1.82 to $20.05.

Other gold companies were mixed, with PanAust firming 4.2% to $2.48 while Resolute Mining shed 2.2% to close at $1.33 and Evolution was 0.7% down to $1.46.

Majors BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto both lost ground. BHP dipped 1.3% to $32.76 while Rio backtracked 1.1% to $57.20.

Most of the iron ore producers closed higher after the spot iron ore price edged closer to $138 per tonne.

Atlas Iron picked up 1.8% to $1.11, Gindalbie Metals jumped 5% to 21c but Fortescue Metals Group finished a see-saw week of trading down 1% to $3.94.

Meanwhile, shares in Azimuth Resources closed up 40.8% to 34.5c after receiving a friendly takeover offer from Troy Resources.

Talga Resources had a good run, firming 13.6% to 25c after releasing a drilling update on its graphite projects.

Minera Gold requested a trading halt pending an announcement regarding its operations in Brazil while Manas Resources shares were suspended due to an upcoming capital raising.

South America-focused Elementos also went into a halt pending an announcement regarding a proposed merger.