Market News
Australia avoids worst of global market chaos
Friday, 07 May. 2010
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted almost 9 per cent (or 1,000 points) during its trading session before recovering to a 348-point loss by the close.The Australian market appears to have taken heart from that late-session recovery and from revelations that some of the biggest US losses were caused by electronic trading errors.The All Ordinaries index was down 50 points at 4,549 by 12:42pm (AEST), compared to an early fall of about 150 points to 4,450.
The ASX 200 was down 44 points at 4,529.The financial sector has been the hardest hit, down about 2.4 per cent at 12:27pm.The Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and NAB were all down between 2.5 and 3 per cent, while ANZ was down a bit less than 2 per cent.Telstra was also down another 2 per cent, after falling yesterday, as investors gauged the impact of the National Broadband Network study, which suggests that Telstra could be bypassed if it does not reach an agreement to sell its fixed-line assets to the NBN. It was worth $3.02 a share at 12:50pm.