The local share market has fallen sharply again, hitting a four-month low after the bank crisis spread to Europe, with fears about the solvency of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse.
At 11.15am AEDT on Thursday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 126.6 point, or 1.79 per cent, to 6942.3, its lowest level since early November.
The broader All Ordinaries index was down 134.3 points, or 1.85 per cent, to 7128.8.
“There’s no buyers really,” Pepperstone head of research Chris Weston said on Ausbiz TV.
“There’s a lot of questions (about banks globally) … and we don’t know the answers at the moment. And when we do that we sell and de-risk and we de-leverage our portfolios, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing at the moment.”
The Swiss central bank said it would provide a backstop to Credit Suisse, whose shares plunged after it announced it had found “weakness” with its financial reporting.
Every sector of the ASX was in the red in the first hour of trade, with financials and tech down by a bit more than two per cent, and energy and materials down by more than three per cent.
ANZ was the leading loser among the Big Four banks, falling 2.2 per cent to $22.75.
Insurance companies IAG and Suncorp were down more than two per cent, and QBE had dropped 3.7 per cent.
BHP was down 3.8 per cent to $43.84.
Whitehaven Coal was down 5.4 per cent to $6.625, its lowest level since August.
– AAP
