CSL falls help drive ASX into correction

Vesna Poljak, Sarah Turner, Jonathan Shapiro, Michael Smith and John Kehoe

Updated Oct 25, 2018 – 7.12pm, first published at 7.00pm

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The Australian market has finally tipped into official correction territory led by a 21 per cent fall since September in the value of CSL, which has crumbled in a flight from growth stocks linked to rising US interest rates.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index shed 164 points, or 2.8 per cent, to close at 5664 points on Thursday in a day of escalating losses following savage trading on Wall Street. A correction represents a 10 per cent loss from the index's 2018 high of 6352 points. Asian equities were not immune with Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 1.6 per cent and Japan's Nikkei 225 more than 3 per cent.

Vesna Poljak was The Australian Financial Review’s companies editor.

Sarah Turner was Perspective editor at The Australian Financial Review.

Jonathan Shapiro writes about banking and finance, specialising in hedge funds, corporate debt, private equity and investment banking. He is based in Sydney.

Michael Smith is the health editor for The Australian Financial Review. He is based in Sydney.

John Kehoe is economics editor at Parliament House, Canberra. He writes on economics, politics and business. John was Washington correspondent covering Donald Trump’s first election. He joined the Financial Review in 2008 from Treasury.