The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) dropped 63 points this morning (22 October) as of 10.20am AEDT, following a steep collapse to the gold price.
The index has gained 0.45% over the past five days, just 0.92% off the 52-week high, while the materials sector sees a 0.60% gain.
Gold explorers, Westgold Resources (ASX:WGX) and Bellevue Gold (ASX:BGL) are marked as the lowest performers today, losing 11.50% and 11.32% to share prices of $5 and $1.18 respectively.
Gold is trading at US$4,130 ($6,362) per ounce, according to ABC Bullion.
Trading Economics reported the precious metal to tumble as much as 6.20% yesterday, seeing the biggest daily drop since April 2013, on the tail of a 50% increase for this year-to-date.
The S&P/ASX200 is Australia’s leading share market index and contains the top 200 ASX-listed companies in terms of market capitalisation, and accounts for about 80% of the country’s equity market.
The index is designed to measure the performance of the 200 largest index-eligible stocks listed on the ASX by float-adjusted market capitalisation.
It is recognised as the institutional investable benchmark in the country.
Write to Maddison Elliott at Mining.com.au
Images: Unsplash
