Shares complete worst month since GFC as Australian growth is tipped to slow
Source: TheGuardian.com
The ASX200 closed at 5,207 points on Monday, which represented a drop of 8.83% in August, its worst monthly performance since October 2008 at the height of the Lehman Brothers crisis. The banks bore the brunt of the selling amid uncertainty about how shifts in the global economy might affect Australia’s huge financial sector. <snip>
The combined profits of the 143 companies that delivered annual numbers dropped by almost a third from the previous year, to $35.9bn. Investors were also wary as forecasts for Australia’s second quarter economic growth softened ahead of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s monetary policy meeting on Tuesday and official growth data on Wednesday. <snip>
The latest business investment figures showed that capital spending is set to slump by about 25% in the current financial year. “That’s why we’re starting from a much weaker base in the June quarter,” he said. “It’s one of those quarters where I wouldn’t be overly surprised if [gross domestic product growth] was a negative. There’s certainly a risk there.”
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/31/shares-complete-worst-month-since-gfc-as-australian-growth-is-tipped-to-slow
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