Aussie shares slide as commodities dip Australian shares fell on Friday as weaker commodity prices weighed down the big miners and banking giant Westpac paid out its dividend. A fall in most base metal prices dented diversified resources giant BHP Billiton and its rival Rio Tinto, Lonsec senior client adviser Michael Heffernan said. "The big resources stocks were down a bit today probably due to the waxing and waning of commodity prices not shooting the lights out last night," he said. BHP lost 29 cents to $37.95, Rio dropped 23 cents to $65.25 and iron ore miner Fortescue Metals shed 24 cents to $5.46. Gold miner Newcrest gave up 25 cents to $9.88. In banking, Westpac was off 95.07 cents at $33.18 after paying out a 98 cent dividend. It held its dividend very well. That is a very good result," Mr Heffernan said. Of the other banks, ANZ lifted 33 cents to $32.71, National Australia Bank added 10 cents to $34.78, while Commonwealth Bank came back from its record high, losing 22 cents to $79.10. Qantas added 2.5 cents to $1.25 after it confirmed it will close its Avalon heavy maintenance facility in Victoria at the end of March. Casinos operator Echo Entertainment dropped 10 cents, or 3.92 per cent, to $2.45 after it said it could spend up to $1.5 billion on redeveloping its Queensland casinos. Telco giant Telstra added three cents to $5.18. At the close on Friday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 21.3 points, or 0.39 per cent, at 5,400.7 points. The broader All Ordinaries index was down 21 points, or 0.39 per cent, at 5,394.4 points. The December share price index futures contract was 20 points lower at 5,409 points, with 23,656 contracts traded. The price of gold in Sydney was $US1,310.39 per fine ounce, down $US8.87 on Thursday's closing price of $US1,319.26. National turnover was 1.7 billion securities worth $4.4 billion.