It took the ASX 200 six months to grind out a 7 per cent gain and hit its record high on February 14. It’s taken just 17 trading days for Australia’s benchmark index to hand all of that back, and more.

The ASX 200 actually held up reasonably well on Tuesday, in the face of the biggest fall on Wall Street since September 2022. The index had fallen as much as 1.8 per cent around lunchtime – cue the juicy headlines about $50 billion being wiped off the local bourse – but clawed its way back in the afternoon to close down 0.9 per cent.