ASX 200 slumps beyond 2%, tracking Wall Street declines
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The news: The Australian sharemarket saw a wide-ranging sell-off in morning trade, following declines on Wall Street overnight after the US Federal Reserve signalled a slower pace of interest rate cuts next year.
The numbers: The ASX 200 was down 2.1% by 12:45pm AEDT. All 11 sectors were in the red, with information technology (-2.8%), financials (-2.1%) and utilities (-2.1%) falling the most.
Uranium explorer Deep Yellow (-11%) was the worst performing ASX 200 company, after delaying a final investment decision on its flagship Tumas project in Namibia.
Gold miners were among the hardest hit, with Westgold Resources (-7.4%), Evolution Mining (-4.1%), Bellevue Gold (-3.9%) and Newmont Corporation (-3.7%) making up four of the 20 worst performing ASX 200 stocks.
Investment manager HMC Capital (-5.8%) resumed its recent decline, having clawed back some initial losses since floating its new real estate investment trust DigiCo Infrastructure REIT (-2.58%) on the ASX last week.
Among the few ASX 200 companies which saw gains, Credit Corp (6.1%), Champion Iron (3.7%) and Insignia Financial (1.7%) were the best performers.
Champion Iron shares gained after the iron ore miner agreed to sell a 49% stake of its Kamistiatusset project to Nippon Steel and Sojitz Steel for $394 million.
Insignia shares rallied after closing 4.2% lower on Wednesday, after the wealth manager rejected a takeover bid from US private equity firm Bain Capital.
The context: The sharp declines across the ASX eclipsed those seen on Wall Street indices overnight, as Dow Jones (-1.3%), S&P 500 (-1.4%), and Nasdaq (-1.8%) all retreated.
The Australian dollar also lost ground, tumbling to its lowest level against the US dollar in more than two years.
