Australia: Sharemarket Plunges on Credit Concerns
December 18th, 2007Via: The Age:
The Australian stock market shredded $54 billion worth of market value today as the global credit crunch claimed its largest Australian victim yet.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 fell more than 3.5 per cent, or 228.2 points to 6263.5 points – exceeding the market rout which followed the September 11 attacks.
This equates to the shares in the index losing more than $54 billion of market value today.
The big drop followed an earnings downgrade by Centro Property Group, which caused carnage among local property trusts.
Centro warned that it was recently unable to refinance some maturing debt. The news saw its shares – which traded above $10 this year – down 74 per cent to $1.47, shedding around $3.5 billion of market value.
The day had already got off to a bad start after high inflation figures in the US dimmed hopes of rate cut there, prompting a big fall on Wall Street.
The All Ordinaries shed 224.3 points to 6331.8.
Research Credit: IL
