Australia, NZ shares ease in cautious trade

SYDNEY/WELLINGTON, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Australian shares fell for a second day on Wednesday, mirroring declines in Asia due to the heightened geopolitical tensions as Russia warned of "serious consequences" after one of its warplanes was shot down by Turkey near the Syrian border.

On the positive side, an overnight rally in commodity prices helped underpin the mining and energy sectors.

The S&P/ASX (Other OTC: ASXFF - news) 200 index shed 0.52 percent, or 27.29 points, to 5,199.10 by 0240 GMT, following a 0.95 percent drop on Tuesday.

Banks, real estate investment trusts (REITS), retailers and telecommunication services were all in the red. Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank both slipped about 0.5 percent.

Mining and energy shares were mostly firmer thanks to a rally in the prices of oil and base metals.

Woodside Petroleum (Xetra: WOP.DE - news) climbed 0.6 percent, while Santos (Dusseldorf: STS1.DU - news) put on 0.7 percent. BHP Billiton (NYSE: BBL - news) added 0.3 percent.

"Energy stocks have obviously benefited from some of these geopolitical tensions, which have put some of the risk premium back into the oil price," said Angus Nicholson, market analyst at IG (LSE: IGG.L - news) .

"They have come down a little bit in Asian trade, but nonetheless we did see a pretty strong performance in the energy sector over in the S&P 500 overnight, so that's obviously led into Asia and certainly onto the ASX."

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New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX (Other OTC: NZSTF - news) 50 index fell 0.35 percent, or 21.42 points, to 6,079.85.

Among the biggest losers, A2 Milk shed 8.2 percent, likely due to some profit taking after a strong recent run.

In contrast, Metro Performance Glass added 2.6 percent, still benefiting from its half-year result earlier this week, which was in line with guidance. (Reporting by Ian Chua in SYDNEY and Rebecca Howard in WELLINGTON; Editing by SImon Cameron-Moore)