Well, that was gruelling. My expectations were low, but not not low enough. Hope everyone came through with minimal damage.
End-of-day summary:
Heavy selling dragged the share market to its lowest close in more than two months as sliding US futures threatened a third night of losses on Wall Street.
The ASX 200 plunged 294 points or 3.7% this afternoon. The index has lost an extraordinary 465 points or 5.73% in two sessions since Thursday's all-time closing high. Today's close at 7649.6 was the weakest since May 30.
Investors continued to charge the exits this session as a dive in US futures suggested last week's US sell-off had further to run. At the Australian market close, S&P 500 futures were down 2.92%. On Friday, the index shed 1.84% after weak jobs growth compounded questions about the health of the US economy.
Tech and spec stocks led today's rout. The ASX tech sector lost 6.61% after the Nasdaq dived into a correction. The ASX Emerging Companies index gave up 6.27%.
Still, today's ASX slide was trivial compared to blood-letting in much of Asia. Japan's Nikkei 225 index tumbled 13.04%, erasing the last of its gains for the year. Taiwan's stock market had its worst day on record. The Asia Dow lost 7.11%.
