Australia’s share market fell to its lowest level since September last year as tariff uncertainty continued to slash the price of bank shares.

By the end of a tough day’s trade on Friday, the ASX 200 index had dropped by 1.8% or 146.5 points to just 7948.2 points.

That marked the second largest weekly drop for the year with 10 sectors falling, with technology stocks the hardest hit.

The only sector to show some positive price action was the defensive consumer staples, with shares in Woolworths (ASX: WOW) up 0.6% to $28.66 while shares in main competitor Coles (ASX: COL) also firmed 0.8% to $18.82.

Trump chops and changes on tariffs

Uncertainty continued to plague the global trade picture with US President Donald Trump deciding to pause 25% tariffs on some Mexican and Canadian imports for a month only three days after they had come into effect.

In the wake of this announcement US shares swung in both directions and eventually closed lower with traders trying to come to terms with the continuing chopping and changing on tariffs by President Trump.

The fall dragged the technology heavy NASDAQ exchange into a correction, with the index now falling more than 10% from its peak on December 16.

Fall led by former market darling CBA

For the local market, the slump saw the ASX 200 index fall below 8000 points for the first time in six months with many of the best performed stocks from last year leading the losses.

Banks were hit particularly hard by the sell off.

Shares in Commonwealth Bank (ASX: CBA) fell 3.3% to $148.50 while another resignation by a Westpac (ASX: WBC) executive – this time retail banking chief Jason Yetton – saw its shares fall 2.2% to $30.57.

The other banks joined in the carnage with shares in ANZ (ASX: ANZ) falling by 2.4% while NAB (ASX: NAB) shares were the best of the big four, down 0.1%.

Commonwealth Bank shares are now down more than 10% from fairly recent market highs and ANZ and Westpac have fallen even further from their highs.

WiseTech (ASX: WTC) shares continued to decline, falling 3.2% to $88.71 on continuing governance concerns about the software company and a general slump in technology shares.

Goodman Group (ASX: GMG) shares also fell heavily to a fresh 11-month low, down 4.8% to $30.53.

Amid all of the gloomy news there were some fresh moves in some company shares due to stock specific factors.

Insignia bidding war sparks rally

The bidding war for Insignia Financial (ASX: IFL) once again grew fresh legs after private equity competitors Bain and CC Capital both raised their bids for the wealth manager to $5 a share.

That valued the company at $3.4 billion and saw its shares fly up a further 9.9% to $4.68.

Shares in burns treatment company PolyNovo (ASX: PNV) dropped a solid 13% to $1.20 after the company revealed it has asked chief executive Swami Raote to leave the company, following reports of alleged bullying towards chairman David Williams and the chief financial officer.

Shares in Spartan Resources (ASX: SPR) also shed 1.4% to $1.42 after it almost doubled losses in the half-year to December, with royalties increased and the company investing $25 million in exploration.

Small cap stock action

The Small Ords Index fell 2.59% for the week to close at 3055.5 points.

ASX 200 vs Small Ords

The week ahead

Once again moves by US President Donald Trump on tariffs have the potential to cause further volatility in world markets.

Other than that, in Australia the release of consumer and business confidence surveys are expected to show improvement following on from the Reserve Bank action in cutting official interest rates.

Inflation figures are due in the United States while Canada is widely expected to cut its official interest rates by 25 basis points as it continues to reel from the unprompted and potentially very expensive tariff war with the United States.

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