Wall Street plunges

The Australian share market will get off to a bad start today, after Wall Street plunged overnight.

The Dow Jones industrial index was almost 300 points down, just minutes before the close, as oil futures had, once again, soared above $US140 a barrel.

It finished even lower. The Dow lost 358.41 points on the day to close at 11,453.42.

All 30 components of the Dow fell.

The blues gripped Wall Street traders after oil prices soared, US interest rates were kept on hold and Goldman Sachs downgraded US brokers.

Oil futures rose $US5.25 overnight and closed slightly below the $US140 mark, at $US139.80. It had touched $US140.39 earlier.

The S&P 500 closed 38.82 points down at 1,283.15.

And the tech heavy NASDAQ composite index tumbled 79.89 points to 2,321.37.

General Motors led the blue chip stocks down.

Falling stocks outnumbered rising ones by more than 6 to one on the day.

There had been good news on the US economy, though.

GDP in the first quarter grew by a slightly better than expected 1 per cent, on an annualised basis.

Home sales data, too, was better than expected.

But none of that mattered, as fear gripped the US market.