A surprise spike in unemployment and weak profit results from key companies added to selling pressure on a third day of heavy falls for Australian shares.
At lunchtime the ASX 200 was down 63 points or 1.4% at 4392, marking a 200-point fall in the index in just three days. All sectors bar utilities and I.T. were trading lower, with telecoms the worst of the bunch, down 7.7% after Telstra reported a 4.7% fall in full-year profit.
Also harming sentiment were poorly received earnings reports from James Hardie and Qantas, and news that the unemployment rate unexpectedly rose 0.2% to 5.3% last month. Analysts had expected the rate to hold steady, despite recent concerns over global growth.
The ABS reported that 4,200 full-time jobs were lost last month, against a gain of 27,700 new part-time positions. The bureau also revised down the June figures from 18,400 full-time jobs created to 12,200.
However, global concerns were the main driver of today's market malaise after heavy overnight falls on Wall Street and in Europe.
"Generally speaking, the market over the last few weeks and months has been worried about global growth concerns," CMC Markets analyst David Taylor told Fairfax websites. "China and the US and Europe are three flashpoints around the world that investors are continually nervous about and what we've seen in the last 48 hours is some of those fears of the slowdown in those economies being realised. Unfortunately, Australia is quite leveraged to world growth."
U.S. futures were recently pointing to a soft start to trade tonight after falls in Asia. Dow futures were recently at -41. Japan's Nikkei fell 2.02% in morning trade, Shanghai 0.45% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng 1.24%.
Crude oil futures were flat this morning at $77.35 a barrel. The spot gold price was unchanged at $1,198.60 an ounce. The Aussie dollar fell back below 90 U.S. cents as risk appetite faded, recently buying 89.43 U.S. cents.
Call me odd but I love mornings like this. Swing traders are like kids in candy stores. Four profitable trades completed so far, one still open: out of COK, NWH, OST and GXY. Still holding IRE.
