The Australian sharemarket ended the week in the red, despite positive leads from European and US markets overnight.

At home, the RBA released its quarterly Monetary Policy Statement, in which it lowered its underlying inflation expectation by 25 basis points to 2.25% for the year to end of June.

The central bank also lowered its GDP growth forecast in the year to June from 4%, to 3.5%.

The RBA said that growth outside the mining sector is expected to remain below trend over the forecast period.

All bar the IT and telco sectors finished underwater. Miners weighed most heavily on the market, following this week’s poor profit results from BHP and Rio Tinto.

Telstra climbed 0.9%, continuing the momentum from yesterday's solid earnings results.

The big four banks weighed on the market as ANZ (-0.9%) shocked some market pundits by raising its variable rate by six basis points.

This was despite the RBA leaving the official cash rate on hold at 4.25%. Rivals Westpac and CBA also lost ground, falling 1.1% each.

In the mining space, BHP and Rio Tinto both declined 2.3%. Rio's fall came as the market factored in yesterday's disappointing earnings result, which was released after the bell.

The ASX 200 slumped 38 points (-0.9%), to close at 4245. Today's fall dragged the market down 0.1% for the week.

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Evening Market Analysis: Miners Sink the Market is a post from: Australian Stock Report Market Pulse Blog