Wall Street had a rocky session overnight. The Dow and Nasdaq recovered from earlier losses to close higher, up 0.20% and 0.37% respectively.
After giving up stronger gains early in the session, that were spurred by a request from the US Fed to Washington for more stimulus measures, S&P 500 closed up 0.30%.
In Europe, Germany’s DAX fell 0.3% and France’s CAC 40 fell 0.8%, while in London, the FTSE 100 lost 1.3%.
In Asia, Shanghai was down 1.72% and the Nikkei 225 fell 1.1%, while the Hang Seng dropped 1.8%.
The ASX 200 finished down 0.8%, or 48 points, on Thursday to 5875.9 points on relatively light volume and was down as much as 1.7% at the open.
Note, however, this down day was coming off the back of the strongest day in two months on Wednesday, in which the market gained 2.4%.
The local market is expected to open slightly higher with the ASX SPI200 futures up 7 points at 8:30 AEST.
ASX Technology stocks are down 6.5% lower since the start of the month. Buy now, pay later leader Afterpay lost $4.59 yesterday to close at $74.14, while Sezzle lost 5.6%. PointsBet fell 5.7%, weighing on the index.
ASX Resource stocks were down yesterday as commodity prices pulled back. The materials sector lost 1.5% with BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals each down.
Gold hit a two month low which sent miners, Newcrest, Northern Star, and Evolution lower. Gold is now buying $US1,868/oz.
Iron ore lost more than 2% on Thursday for a more than 6% drop over the past week. Overnight, iron ore gained 0.8% to US$114.67/t.
Brent crude is flat at $US41.76 a barrel, while WTI (US) oil is up 0.7% to $US40.19 a barrel.
ASX listed Energy stocks have now lost more than 10% over the past month.
The Aussie dollar continue its slide, now at US$0.7054 after hitting a two month low overnight of US$0.7016.