The S&P/ASX200 fell 48.9 points on Monday, down 0.57 per cent, to 8,565.2, as the broader All Ordinaries lost 52.2 points, or 0.59 per cent, to 8,866.5.
A modest morning gain quickly swung into the red after signs of further interest rate hikes in Japan dragged on the Nikkei, causing a domino effect which weighed on US futures and the local bourse, IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said.
"We have support coming in for the Japanese yen, and the Nikkei doesn't like it so, and that sort of flowed through to US equity futures, it has flowed through to Bitcoin and cascaded a little bit through into the ASX 200 today," he told AAP.
"We were looking for a slightly firmer open but here we are, back below 8600 today."
The slump also came as bourse operator ASX scrambled to fix an outage impacting the publication of market sensitive announcements, locking scores of companies in trading halts for most of the day, and wiping 2.8 per cent from ASX Ltd's share price.
Eight of 11 local sectors traded lower as health care, consumer staples and IT stocks tumbled, while the energy sector surged 0.5 per cent on the back of a rising oil price, as Ukrainian drones hit two Russian 'shadow fleet' crude tankers.
The heavyweight financials sector gave up 0.9 per cent as all big four banks traded lower, with ANZ copping the brunt of the move, down 1.3 per cent to $34.20, while CBA's 0.6 per cent slump to $151.64 was the best of the bunch.
Insurance broker AUB was the top-200's worst performer, down 17.8 per cent after its two private equity suitors walked away from a more than $5 billion takeover bid.
Raw materials stocks gained 0.3 per cent, helped by large cap miners BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue as iron ore futures spiked to equal four-week highs during the session, with tight steelmaking inventories outweighing yet another month of contracting factory activity in China.
Gold stocks were broadly lower, despite the spot price rising to $US4,226 ($A6,461) an ounce, as investors took profit on the previous week's run-up.
Evolution Mining fell almost two per cent, while Northern Star and Newmont edged 0.2 per cent either side of break-even.
Consumer staples stocks fell 0.9 per cent, as Coles and Woolworths edged lower and a handful of company-specific drops weighed.
Shares in wholesale giant Metcash sunk 9.2 per cent to $3.36 when it came out of the outage-impacted trading halt, after the IGA supplier noted tobacco sales had plunged by more than a third in the six months to October due to black market trade.
Penfolds owner Treasury Wine Estates slipped 0.7 per cent per cent after flagging $687 million in goodwill writedowns in its US business.
Health care stocks trailed the broader market, down 1.7 per cent in a nearly sector-wide sell-off, excepting Ramsay Health Care (+1.2 per cent) which provided a small island of green in the segment's sea of red.
Imaging IT provider Pro Medicus slumped 1.6 per cent to $262.18 despite announcing a seven-year, $25 million deal with a US health network, wiping a significant chunk of the previous week's nearly eight per cent gain.
The Australian dollar is buying 65.41 US cents, up from 65.29 US cents on Friday.
Looking ahead, investors will be watching Wednesday's quarterly GDP data release, along with a speech by Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock a few hours before.Â
ON THE ASX:
* The S&P/ASX200 fell 48.9 points, or 0.57 per cent, to 8,565.2
* The broader All Ordinaries gained 52.2 points, or 0.59 per cent, to 8,866.5
CURRENCY SNAPSHOT:
One Australian dollar trades for:
* 65.41 US cents, from 65.29 US cents at 5pm on Thursday
* 101.79 Japanese yen, from 102.09 Japanese yen
* 56.40 euro cents, from 56.35 euro cents
* 49.48 British pence, from 49.35 British pence
* 114.18 NZ cents, from 114.17 NZ cents
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