May 10 (Reuters) - Australian shares fell on Wednesday led by the losses in financials and energy stocks, as cautious investors awaited key monthly U.S. consumer prices data that could influence the Federal Reserve's interest rate decisions.

The S&P/ASX 200 index extended losses to slip as much as 0.4% to 7238.5 points by 1220 GMT.

Domestic lenders led the declines falling as much as 1.1%, set to snap a three-session rally.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, ANZ Group Holdings and Westpac Banking Corp slipped between 0.4% and 5.0%.

Investor focus now shifts to the U.S. consumer prices data for April due later in the day, which will be seen as a crucial indicator of how well the world's largest economy is recovering.

The market expects the CPI index to have gained 0.4% in April from the month before and 5.5% from a year earlier on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, a Reuters poll of economists showed.

Energy stocks retreated 0.5% even as oil prices ticked up, with sector majors Woodside Energy and Santos losing 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively.

Local miners were down 0.2%, with mining giant Rio Tinto falling 0.4%.

However, ioneer Ltd advanced 7.1% on signing a commercial offtake agreement with U.S.-based Dragonfly Energy Holdings Corp for manufacturing of lithium carbonate in Nevada.

Bucking the trend, technology stocks advanced as much as 0.4%. Leading gains on the sub-index, Life360 and Megaport jumped 2.4% and 1%, respectively.

Appen Ltd tanked as much as 19.4% after the AI training provider flagged a soft start to the year due to unfavourable economic conditions.

Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index was largely unchanged.

(Reporting by Roushni Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)