An institutional investable benchmark suffered a sharp drop in market value within less than 24 hours.
The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 4.12% to 8,486.40 points in just a few hours of the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) opening for trade.
Resources sector technology supplier Dyno Nobel (ASX:DNL) was one of the most “bottom performing stocks”, dropping 10% to $3 each share. Biotechnology multinational CSL (ASX:CSL) dwindled 1.7% to $141.65 a share during the same period.
Minerals giant BHP (ASX:BHP) earlier recorded a 7% jump to a record-high $59.25 on March 2 before easing back to $49.36 after the weekend. Competitor Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) also surged 6% to a record-high $169.44 before falling to $151.35 per unit in the past week.
“Over the last five days the index has lost 7.77% and 6.77% over the last 52 weeks,” the ASX markets website says.
The index previously reported a third year of “positive returns” during 2025 despite “some concerns about the state of the world”.
“The big option trades using longer dated contracts we found in January appear to be looking for continuation of this upward trend in 2026,” the ASX website says.
Analysts say the share price declines follow both the US and Israeli government’s bombing attacks against Iran.
“Global downturns always hit Australia harder than other jurisdictions, and I think we could see a real downturn if the war goes on for too long,” ATFX Global chief market strategist Nick Twidale tells Reuters.
“Australia has got more topside to come once the conflict is resolved but unfortunately, at the moment, it seems to be rolling on,” he adds.
The S&P/ASX 200 index lost an estimated $130 billion of market value in the past week according to the newswire agency.
Write to Richard Szabo at Mining.com.au
Images: Marcus Reubenstein via Unsplash
