ASX sheds 3% in $56bn bloodbath
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 (^AXJO) has shed $56 billion, after plunging nearly 3 per cent to 5,936.30 at 1:27pm AEST, dragged down by tech and healthcare stocks.
The broader All Ordinaries index (^AORD) is also down 2.61 per cent to 6,136.80 points.
What happened this morning?
The Australian share market is set for a shocking day of trade, after Wall Street saw its biggest sell-off since early June.
It comes just days after the share market recorded its best gain since early August, even shrugging off confirmation that the nation was in its first recession in nearly 30 years.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 (^AXJO) opened more than 2 per cent lower to 5,970 points, with the information technology sector trading more than 3 per cent lower at 10:10 AEST.
The broader All Ordinaries index (^AORD) also opened 2.49 per cent lower to 6,144.0 points.
What happened overnight?
A stellar rally on Wall Street has come to an abrupt end, after the Dow Jones tanked nearly 800 points on Thursday by early afternoon trading, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged about 4 per cent.
The dip was led by some of the pandemic’s leading stocks, with Amazon and Microsoft diving 5 per cent, Apple and Tesla 7 per cent, and Zoom 11 per cent.
Finance commentators believe the sell-off was well overdue, with valuations on big tech names like Tesla simply getting out of hand.
“It could be the start [of a correction],” Belpointe Asset Management chief strategist David Nelson told Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade. “I don’t think the stock market — and particularly the S&P 500 and Nasdaq — really represents what is going on in the economy.”
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