Australia's stock market fell another 3 per cent to a long time low on Friday, with financial firms plumeting, on fears that more credit market colapses vaulting the US into a Great Depression unheard of since the 1930's. This is murdering the global economies, and Australia is going down with it.
THE Australian share market is in a quandary with confidence badly sapped by bad news about reckless lending and pyramid investment here and overseas, leaving all but the sickest investors running to the banks to get what little money they have left when share losses approached hundreds of billions.
As another volatile session stripped huge percentages yesterday, stock advisers were at a loss to explain the steep drops, saying investor resilience had been shot to pieces with a complete absence of institutional buying, made worse by a massive hedge fund short selling continuing to feed off the dismal sentiment. According to reports out of Sydney's financial district, spectators saw at least several people leaping from tall buildings.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index dropped 163.6 points to 5,271.9 by 0044 GMT, its lowest level since the Great Depression and after falling again in the previous session.
New Zealand's benchmark NZX-50 is at it's lowest levels ever.
Australia's stocks fell, rounding out the Australian All Ordinaries Index's biggest weekly loss in two decades, after U.S. foreclosures reached a record and commodity prices dropped. American consumers are ditching the dollar for gold at a time when the world is selling off huge gold reserves. Economists haven't evaluated the long-term impact of this yet, but one American economist, Dr. Fishkind, said: This ain't good; Ain't good at all!
National Australia Bank Ltd. tumbled to a three-year low, leading financial companies lower, on concern of massive home-loan defaults, as is happening in the US, will provoke huge credit losses. BHP Billiton plummeted for the first time in four days after a decline in metals prices.
Margin calls were at a record high and investors saw their retirement funds and long term investments vannish into thin air. Babcock & Brown reported that "there's no end in sight."