The Australian sharemarket will start sharply lower today, wiping out last week’s small 5.1 point gain for the week.
Overnight trading on Friday saw ASX 200 futures lose 36 points in the wake of another down day on Wall Street.
Australian shares managed a small gain of 0.1% last week after two weeks of falls with strong gains in resource, property, and IT stocks offsetting weakness in financials.
The tiny rise helped the ASX avoid a fifth straight weekly decline. But that gain will disappear today.
The ASX 200 fell 18.7 points, or 0.3%, to close at 5864.5
The ASX 200 is down 3.2% for September so far, which would be the first monthly backwards step after the surge from March’s lows.
Iron ore prices rose on Friday after three days of falls and ended the week down from the week before.
The price of 62%Fe fines delivered to northern China rose $US2.54 to $US124.90 a tonne. The price had peaked at more than six-year highs on Monday at $US130.17.
