Technology shares in Australia followed the slump in US tech stocks overnight. WiseTech Global fell 0.9 per cent, while Computershare Limited and Xero slipped 1 per cent and 0.8 per cent, respectively.

The only shining light for the index on Thursday was the healthcare sector, which was the only one of the 11 sectors to close in the green. There were marginal gains across most stocks, but wholesaler and healthcare distributor EBOS Group and manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation had the biggest gains, climbing 1.8 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively.

In the US, the still-cautious mood is damping hopes for a rally in the last trading week of 2022 after a brutal year for financial markets. Global equities have lost a fifth of their value, the largest decline since 2008 on an annual basis, and an index of global bonds has slumped 16 per cent.

The S&P 500 is headed for a roughly 20 per cent drop in 2022, while the Dow is on pace for a 9 per cent drop, even as profits and margins for S&P 500 companies have hit record heights this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is doing much worse and is on pace to plunge 34 per cent.

With only one day of trading left in 2022, Sidney said the market was unlikely to see big movement in its final day, nor in the first week of 2023, and that investors would be looking towards mid-January for some positive movement in the market.

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“I think it will start to pick up the second week of January, and then waiting for reporting season to come late January, early February, and that will sort of kick off our market over here,” Sidney said.

“And then you’ll have quarterly reporting season in the US and that will kick off similar timeframe. That will probably start to move the markets around.”

With Bloomberg/AP