Taking a quick look at how the market is responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:

The S&P/ASX 200 shed 3 per cent on Thursday, one of its worst showings of the year, as investors rushed from risk assets to the safety of government bonds and gold.

The broad-based selling in Australian blue chips reached all 11 sharemarket sectors, led by a 6.4 per cent decline for tech stocks, 4.3 per cent for materials and 3.7 per cent for consumer discretionary stocks.

Big declines within the blue chip benchmark included Life360 and Appen, which both shed more than 28 per cent of value on the day after lacklustre earnings before markets opened.

Cimic, the day’s clear leader, jumped 33.40 per cent after announcing it had received a takeover offer.

US and Australian bonds rallied, pushing the yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond 4 basis points lower to 1.9 per cent, while the yield on its Australian equivalent fell by a similar sum to 2.16 per cent, as investors rushed to haven assets.