Australian shares to extend losses after Wall Street meltdown

The news: The Australian sharemarket is set to open sharply lower, extending losses from the previous session, after Wall Street plunged over US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs.

The numbers: Updated at 7.25am AEDT:

• ASX futures: down 93 points or 1.18% at 7,786 points
• Wall Street: Dow Jones down 3.98%, S&P 500 down 4.85%, Nasdaq down 5.99%
• Europe: FTSE 100 down 1.55%, CAC 40 down 3.31%, DAX down 3.01%
• Spot gold: down 0.80% to USD3,110.18 per ounce
• Oil prices: Brent down 6.72% to USD69.91/bbl, US WTI down 7.03% to USD66.67/bbl
• AUD: up 0.40% at 63.23 US cents
• Bitcoin: down 0.63% to USD81,869.39.

The context: Wall Street main benchmarks ended with the largest one-day percentage losses in years as the US tariffs ignited fears of an all-out trade war and a global economic recession. Investors fled from risky assets, seeking the safety of government bonds, while the CBOE Volatility index , known as Wall Street's fear gauge, touched a three-week high. High-flying technology stocks, including Apple, Nvidia and Amazon.com suffered big declines. Traders are ramping up expectations for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates four times this year, starting with a quarter-point cut in June.

What to watch: The Australian Bureau of Statistics will publish Monthly Household Spending data for February at 11.30am.