ASX set for sharp fall after growth concerns hit Wall St

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped more than 900 points on Friday in New York as another sharp sell-off led by technology stocks added to Wall Street’s losses in April, resulting in the S&P 500 index’s biggest monthly skid since the start of the pandemic.

A sharp drop in Amazon weighed on the US market after the internet retail giant posted its first loss since 2015. The decline knocked more than $US200 billion ($283 billion) off Amazon’s market value.

The benchmark S&P 500 fell 3.6 per cent and finished April with an 8.8 per cent loss, its worst monthly slide since March 2020. The Dow slumped 2.8 per cent. It sets up the Australian sharemarket for heavy losses, with futures pointing to a loss of 94 points, or 1.3 per cent, when the market opens on Monday.

The Nasdaq composite, heavily weighted with technology stocks, bore the brunt of the damage this month, ending April with a 13.3 per cent loss, its biggest monthly decline since the 2008 financial crisis.

Major indexes shifted between slumps and rallies throughout the week as the latest round of corporate earnings hit the market in force. Investors have been reviewing a particularly heavy batch of financial results from big tech companies, industrial firms and retailers.

However, some disappointing results or outlooks from Apple, Google’s parent company, and Amazon helped fuel the selling this week.

“When you start to hear from companies saying that perhaps demand is down, the concerns over a deeper slowdown in the economy gains momentum, and that’s where we are,” said Quincy Krosby, chief equity strategist for LPL Financial.

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