00:57

With less than half an hour of trade left to go on the Australian market, it looks likely to finish the day down between 5% and 6%.

But it’s hard to be sure because the market is extremely volatile today.

It was about 2% down in early trade before sliding a percentage point as Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced details of a $17.6bn stimulus package.

President Donald Trump’s announcement that most travel from Europe to the US would be banned sent the market into panic selling mode, with the benchmark ASX200 index diving to be as much as 7% down for the day.

It has recovered slightly since then. At about 3.45pm it was down 5.4%.