Australia Stocks trade lower on US rout

The Australian share market stumbled on Wednesday, 04 March 2020, as risk aversion selloff triggered across the board on tracking decline in Wall Street overnight despite U.S. Federal Reserve emergency rate cut to curb the economic fallout from the coronavirus epidemic. Investors remained cautious over the potential economic impacts to the global economy caused by the spread of the coronavirus, even as central banks around the world look to stimulate economies through interest rate cuts. Around late afternoon, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index tumbled 114.28 points, or 1.78%, to 6,321.40, while the broader All Ordinaries shed 117.62 points, or 1.81%, to 6,394.00.

Losses have again been rather broad based with nearly 80% of the top 200 stocks in reverse and nearly every sector in the red. The largest percentage declines have been among the tech, energy and healthcare sectors while materials and utilities are flat or marginally higher.

ECONOMIC NEWS: Australia's economy grew by a better-than-expected 0.5% in the December quarter and 2.2% over the past year, according to the Bureau of Statistics.

The Reserve Bank yesterday preemptively cut interest rates by 25 basis points in anticipation of a major growth hit from both bushfires and the coronavirus. Treasury has estimated that the bushfires might take 0.2 percentage points from GDP, while the OECD has warned that coronavirus could hit Australian economic growth by at least 0.5 percentage points.

CURRENCY: The Aussie dollar has firmed back to 66 US cents after the December economic growth (GDP) data beat expectations. Quarterly growth came in at 0.5% above estimates of 0.4% with annual growth of 2.2%.

In Commodity news: Gold for April delivery jumped 2.5% to settle at $1,644.40 an ounce, while the price of a barrel of oil gained 0.9%, to end at $47.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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