ASX 200 weekly wrap: BHP, CSL & big banks' shares fall

Global miner BHP Billiton, biotech giant CSL and ANZ, Westpac and Macquarie had billions of dollars wiped from their market value last week.

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Canstar’s General Manager of Wealth Josh Callaghan said the ASX200 has suffered seven-straight trading sessions of losses with threats of more US tariffs on China hurting investors’ risk appetite last week.

“Forces weighing down the market seem to be not Australia specific as local investors react to a sell-off of technology stocks in the US and the US government’s rhetoric around tariffs which is likely to slow trade,” Mr Callaghan said.

“While there are wide sweeping reports of the negative results in our market, it’s important to note that the latest close is still 7.5% above the same time last year so it’s probably not the time to panic.”

The S&P/ASX 200 dropped 2.77% to 6,143.8 points and the All Ordinaries declined 2.72% to 6,252.3 points over the course of last week thanks to a broad sell-off with particularly heavy losses from the healthcare and information technology sectors.

Mr Callaghan said the technology sector was down more than 6% after the FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google) stocks sold off sharply in the US last week, sending shock waves across other markets for that sector.

“Healthcare was also down however, it’s worth noting that the sector is up over 40% from this time last year so it’s certainly able to absorb some of the downturn,” he said.

Blood products and vaccine maker CSL weighed heavily on the healthcare sector after its shares tumbled 7.6% to $210.65, slashing $7.8 billion from its market value last week.

BHP Billiton was among the heavyweight stocks to shed a sizeable amount of its market value last week after its shares declined by nearly 6% to $31.30.

The financials sector also closed lower last week with ANZ, Westpac and Macquarie Group among the companies that had the largest falls in market value.

Among the best performers were gold miners Northern Star Resources and Evolution Mining with Northern Star’s share price jumping 17.5% to $8.18 to boost its market value by almost $1 billion.