Tech shares battered as huge Wall Street sell-off bleeds into Australian sharemarket

The Australian sharemarket suffered a brutal opening blow on Friday with very few companies unscathed in the dramatic plunge.

A staggering Wall Street plunge has bled into Australian shares with very few companies unscathed in the savage Friday sell-off.

ASX investors were fleeing for cover in the opening minutes of trade after an overnight drop that left tech titans such as Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Meta and Netflix badly bruised.

The wave of selling cascaded from the US and over local markets with a massive 2.3 per cent wiped from the benchmark ASX 200 in the first hour.

Those losses extended to 2.7 per cent by noon, a decline of $60 billion, as the market dropped 203.3 points market to a near two-month low of 7161.4.

All sectors were down, including the heavyweight banking and mining sectors.

Of the 200 companies on the index, only six companies were ahead at 12.20pm AEST. Healthcare companies Polynovo and Fisher and Paykel were the best performers

Indices in Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong also slumped.

ASX investors were fleeing for cover in the first 30 minutes of trade in the wake of an overnight drop that left tech titans such as Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Meta and Netflix badly bruised. Picture: NCA NewsWire / James Gourley

Much like in the US, local tech firms copped the worst of the selling.

Afterpay owner Block Inc fell 1.9 per cent to $142.71 in the opening exchanges and was also hurt by an overnight earnings miss.

Accounting software firm Xero lost 6.9 per cent to $88.60, Wisetech Global was 3.9 per cent down at $42.10, Appen lost 4.2 per cent to $6.42, and Altium was down 4.3 per cent to $30.74.

Macquarie Group shares sagged 6.3 per cent to $189.84 even after the investment bank reported soaring full-year profits and an increased dividend.

Chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake had also urged caution amid volatile market conditions.

Blood giant CSL lost 3.7 per cent to $266, Cochlear was 5.6 per cent down at $216.36, and Sonic Healthcare fell 2 per cent to $35.73to way on the healthcare sector.

Any enthusiasm traders showed after Wednesday’s market-pleasing US Fed statement quickly evaporated as the reality of the inflation fight ahead crept back in.

Afterpay owner Block Inc fell 1.9 per cent to $142.71 and was also hurt by an overnight earnings miss. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard

City Index analyst Tony Sycamore said the sell-off comes as the market juggles a long list of uncertainties, including the Fed‘s aggressive tightening cycle, high inflation and slowing growth.

“While Fed Chair Powell stated yesterday that he is confident he can engineer a soft landing for the US economy, he is attempting the Central Banker equivalent of landing an Airbus 380 on Bankstown Airport,” Mr Sycamore said.

“There is a considerable risk of overshoot.”

The Bank of England helped matters little when it flagged a “significant adverse impact” of the sharp rises in global energy and tradeable goods prices and warned real incomes and many UK companies’ profit margins would be hurt.

US technology stocks copped a particularly savage beating with the Nasdaq dropping five per cent.

The Dow Jones fell 3.1 per cent and the S&P 500 was 3.6 per cent lower.