The Australian share market has lost all the gains it made this year, after suffering a fall of more than one per cent.
It topped off the worst week for the local market since March and the second worst week for the year.
Stocks across the board fell in the wake of heavy selling on Wall Street overnight and on Asian markets during Friday.
Concerns about conflict in Iraq, Syria and Russia, and the prospect of interest rate rises in the US in 2015 prompted the slide on US markets.
Lonsec senior client adviser Michael Heffernan said the local market’s performance on Friday had been disappointing.
“There’s a bit more blood seeping through the floor at the moment,” he said.
“It’s not to be unexpected though given the pretty lacklustre performances of overseas markets and commodities, geopolitical fears and worries about interest rates rising in the US.”
Mr Heffernan said overseas investors continued to flee the Australian market as the value of the Australian dollar continued to fall.
Mr Heffernan said it was hard to tell when or where the Australian dollar would stabilise.
“But my view is if good stocks are going down, it’s good buying opportunity,” he said.
On the local bourse, resources stocks were hit hard as the iron ore price dropped one per cent to another fresh five-year low.
Global miner BHP Billiton was down 63 cents at $34.16 as it teamed up with Mexican oil company Pemex in a bid to develop deepwater petroleum reserves, according to preliminary closing figures.
Rio Tinto lost $1.39 to $60.11, and Fortescue Metals weakened eight cents to $3.54.
Among the major banks, Commonwealth Bank reversed $1.39 cents to $75.26, ANZ shed 33 cents to $30.99, Westpac dumped 32 cents at $31.89, and National Australia Bank descended 41 cents to $32.70.
Gold stocks were the only bright spot as the precious commodity rose overnight.
Gold miner Newcrest lifted 22 cents to $10.54.
KEY FACTS
* At 1617 AEST on Friday, according to preliminary closing figures, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 68.8 points, or 1.28 per cent, at 5,313.4 points.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 65.8 points, or 1.22 per cent, to 5,316.6 points.
* The December share price index futures contract was down 68 points at 5,303 points, with 29,311 contracts traded.
* National turnover was 1.77 billion securities worth $6.8 billion.