Nearly $110 billion in value was wiped from companies listed on the Australian share market today.
The 4.2% drop for Australia’s benchmark ASX 200 index built on Friday’s 2.4% slide and Thursday’s relative 0.9% decline.
I’m not sure what it says about Australian traders that they had the opportunity to react first to Donald Trump’s tariff announcement and the local consensus on Thursday was largely, “Meh, not much to see here”.
Or maybe they are quietly confident that Australia will remain a lucky country, largely overlooked by the recent global financial disasters.
There is certainly a lot to see in global markets.
China’s three major stock indexes responded to the imposition of reciprocal tariffs on US imports with crashes of varying magnitude, ranging from more than 7% in Shanghai to 13% in Hong Kong.
Immediately after the open, major European markets were also sliding further into the red, with Germany’s DAX falling 6 percent – after opening 9 percent lower – and London’s FTSE closing down almost 5 percent.
US traders had all evening to digest President Trump’s Rose Garden comments before trading on Thursday – their initial bid for the benchmark S&P 500 fell nearly 5% led by even bigger declines for big tech.
By Friday, it was clear that the more they heard and thought about Trump’s tariff plan, the more they became afraid of it — the S&P 500 lost another 6 percent.
After a weekend to reflect on what’s happening, it seems few people are taking up the opportunity bought by the president.
At the time of writing, US share futures were down another 3.2%, having been near 5 at one point earlier today, meaning there is no clear end to the sell-off in sight.
