Share market suffers biggest single-day fall since February 2013
Investors worried by global volatility have driven the Australian share market's biggest single-day loss since February last year.
Australian stocks matched the sharp falls on Wall Street, losing more than 2 per cent to end what had already been a poor week.
The All Ordinaries index and ASX-200 each fell 108 points to finish at 5,186 and 5,188 respectively.
Local stocks have now fallen nearly 7 per cent in the past month alone and analysts said the market was overdue for a correction.
Matt Sherwood, the head of investment markets research at Perpetual, said global markets were suffering.
"It's pretty aggressive, it's in most markets and it's in most sectors so there's going to have to really be a change in expectations to really ease these selling pressures," he said.
"Every sector of the Australian share market fell by 1.5 per cent or more, so it was a pretty bleak day for investors."
He said the prominence of mining and financial stocks on the Australian market was leaving it more vulnerable.
Rio Tinto shares dropped 3 per cent and BHP Billiton 2.25 per cent.
The Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ each lost 1.9 per cent while NAB fell 1.7 per cent.
Dollar also down
The volatility for the Australian dollar also continued, with the currency down around a cent against the greenback from Thursday.
About 5:30pm (AEDT) the dollar was buying 87.80 US cents, 69.1 euro cents, 54.4 British pence, 94.6 Japanese yen and $NZ1.11.
Elsewhere on the market Qantas dropped 3.2 per cent while rival Virgin Australia was one of the few stocks to rise, adding 1.3 per cent.
Telstra lost 2 per cent, Wesfarmers was down 2.7 per cent, Harvey Norman fell 1.4 per cent and JB Hi-Fi dropped 2.4 per cent.
Official data released today indicated the investor housing market took a break from its recent gains in August.
The Bureau of Statistics figures showed the value of investment loans for housing fell a tenth of a per cent in the month, but the loan category was still up more than 27 per cent for the year.
Global oil prices fell along with equities, with West Texas crude oil down to $US85.71 a barrel and Tapis crude in Singapore selling for $US91.01 a barrel.
Spot gold also slipped a little to $US1,223 an ounce.
