Blame Qantas, fears about US tapering, nervy investors, over anxious hedge funds – anything – but the $20 billion plus sell-off in the local market yesterday was a worry.
It means that since the start of November (and taking into account Wednesday’s small fall) the market is down by more than 4%.
That’s despite a couple of successful listings and all the hype around the appearance of Nine Entertainment today as a listed group.
The market closed at the day’s lows, yesterday with the big banks and Qantas leading a sharp sell-off.
The ASX200 plunged 75.8 points, or 1.4% per cent, to 5198.0, while the All Ords lost 70.6 points, or 1.3%, to 5196.9.
The market will start weakly this morning with the futures market showing a small fall and the gold price lost much of its gains from the day before.
ASX200 5-Day – Local market in the grip of December blues?
Wall Street wasn’t convincing and markets offshore are focused on the US jobs data tonight for November.
The Aussie dollar remained well above 90 US cents in trading yesterday after its overnight dip to 89.99.
The afternoon slide took the ASX200 below 5200 points for the first time since mid-October.
Qantas shares lost 11.2% on the profit downgrade and cost cutting exercise announced before trading started yesterday.
Gold prices also slid in Asian trading and much of the overnight confidence evaporated in Australia and the rest of Asia where losses were taken on other markets.
The big banks led the way with losses, especially in the afternoon session. Westpac lost 2.7%, the NAB, 2.1%, ANZ 1.8% and CBA 1.7%.
Retailers were hurt – Woolies shed 1.8%, Wesfarmers, 1.3% and the old standby for nervy fund managers, Telstra, saw its shares lose 1.4%.
Miners did OK – BHP and Rio Tinto had tiny falls in comparison while Fortescue saw its shares rise 1.1% because of higher iron ore prices and the weaker Aussie dollar.
The Westfield twins, the Retail Trust and the Group, saw their securities join the slide and both did worse than the wider market as big investors continued to question the rationale behind the split and seek more detail (such as management fees for the Trust managing interest of other investors in Australian and NZ shopping malls).
Group units lost 2.3% or 25 cents to $10.53 and the Retail Trust saw its units lose 8 cents to $2.91, a fall of 2.6%.
