The Australian share market has ended the day lower on Monday as global geopolitical tension spooked the local bourse, despite a healthy lead in from Wall Street.

At the market close, the main S&P/ASX 200 index was down 0.39 percent to end at 5,702.00 points - while the broader based All Ordinaries index was 22.30 points lower, or 0.39 percent, to finish at 5,763.80 points.

There were some heavy movers on the market on Monday, with Resapp Health (up 49.25 percent), Doray Minerals (up 9.30 percent), and under-fire telco Vocus (up 5.70 percent) beating out the bourse - while Freedom Food (down 5.53 percent), surf retailer Billabong (down 4.83 percent) and Nine Entertainment (down 3.88 percent) all suffered in the day's trade.

In the banking majors, it was an overall poor performance with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (down 1.42 percent), Westpac (down 0.29 percent), the ANZ (down 0.58 percent) and the National Australia Bank (down 0.07 percent) all taking a hit.

In mining, the results were mixed on Monday, as BHP (up 0.26 percent) and Newcrest (up 0.34 percent) both did well, while Rio Tinto (down 0.92 percent) and Fortescue (down 1.43 percent) lost ground.

The oil and gas majors lost ground Monday with Woodside (down 0.35 percent), PNG-focussed Oil Search (down 0.89 percent) and Santos (up 0.40 percent) failed to buck the trend.

Grocery giant Woolworths (down 0.16 percent) had a modest loss, while rivals Wesfarmers (down 0.50 percent) also dropped off.

Telco giant Telstra (down 0.14 percent) mostly hovered on Monday, while airline Qantas (down 1.58 percent) had a sharp fall.

At 4:30 p.m. local time AEST, one Australian dollar was buying 79.53 U.S. cents, while crude oil was trading at 47.27 U.S. dollars per barrel.