Australian share market braces for down spiral on overseas cues
04 Jun 2012
The Australian share market is expected to continue to spiral down after it lost $100 billion in value last month.
The US jobs figures showed an 8.2 per cent unemployment rate, the weakest numbers in a year, that triggered heavy falls on both north American and European markets last week.
On the ASX yesterday, the June share price index futures contract showed a 58-point fall to 4012 points, down 1.4 per cent, which was expected to take the ASX to seven-month lows.
Reacting to the weak US employment data, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2.2 per cent, the broader S&P 500 index shed 2.5 per cent and the tech-laden Nasdaq gave up 2.8 per cent.
In Europe, the German and French markets fell over 2 and 3 per cent respectively, while London's FTSE 100 slid over 1 per cent.
The May falls on the ASX and the latest global carnage would see pressure increase on the Reserve Bank of Australia to reduce interest rates to stimulate spending at its meeting tomorrow.
