ASX starts lower as tech and mining stocks lead broad losses
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More news: Australian shares fell sharply in early trading, following steep losses on Wall Street overnight. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was down 120.5 points, or 1.4%, at 10:40am AEDT, with all 11 sectoral indices in the red.
Tech stocks were the hardest hit, as the sector shed 3.7%. Life360 (-6.5%) extended its recent selloff, while Megaport (-5.4%), Codan (-5.3%), NextDC (-4.7%), TechnologyOne (-3.6%) and WiseTech (-3.5%) dropped.
Miners (-2.2%) also fell, with iron ore giants BHP, Fortescue and Rio Tinto falling more than 2%. The market's largest gold miners Northern Star and Evolution Mining were down more than 4%.
Financials (-1.7%) slumped as big four lenders ANZ (-2.2%), Westpac (-1.7%), CBA (-1.6%) and NAB (-1.6%) lowered.
TPG Telecom was down 29.2% as it traded ex-dividend.
Australian shares to open lower as rate cut uncertainty weighs on Wall St
The news: Australian shares are set to open lower as a steep selloff in US tech heavyweights took Wall Street's three main indices lower.
The numbers: Updated at 7:30am AEDT:
- ASX futures: down 40 points to 8,717
- Wall Street: Dow Jones down 1.60%, S&P 500 down 1.70% and Nasdaq down 2.39%
- Europe: CAC 40 down 0.11%, DAX down 1.39% and FTSE 100 down 1.05%
- Spot gold: up 1.71% to USD4,197 per ounce
- Oil prices: Brent up 0.47% to USD63.00/bbl and US WTI up 0.25% to USD58.64/bbl
- AUD: up 0.22% at 65.28 US cents
- Bitcoin: down 3.40% to USD98,189.
The context: The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped more than 2% after megacaps Tesla (-6.6%), Nvidia (-4.1%), Alphabet (-2.4%) and Amazon (-2.3%) all tumbled.
The selloff came as US President Donald Trump signed legislation to end the longest shutdown in US history, leaving investors with continued gaps in official economic data.
Missing data also reduced expectations of an interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve's next meeting in December. CME data showed traders pricing just under a 50% chance of a cut next month, down from 70% last week.
The source: Bloomberg
