The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is once again falling over this Thursday's trading session thus far. At the time of writing, the ASX 200 is down by a depressing 1.02% to just under 7,000 points. But things are faring far worse today with the Block Inc (ASX: SQ2) share price.
Block shares are getting a hammering today. The US-based fintech company and new owner of Afterpay is down by a nasty 15.63% at $102.30 a share as it currently stands. That puts Block very close to its 52-week low of $102 a share. It also means the company has fallen close to 30% over just the past five trading days. Not to mention more than 37% over the past month.
So what's going on with Block today that has elicited such a sharp selloff?
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Why are Block shares getting smashed today?
Well, it's not entirely clear. There hasn't actually been any news or developments out of Block itself that might explain this tanking share price. However, there are still several factors that we can look to. The first is the Block Inc (NYSE: SQ) stock price, the original US listing of Block.
SQ2 shares are simply an ASX-listed version of Block's American SQ shares. They are more or less the same investment, just priced on a different stock exchange. But last night (our time), Block's US shares were also smashed. The company dropped 15.61% in last night's trading down to US$71.22 a share.
This seems to have been sparked by both the ongoing sell-off in the US tech shares sector and a sharp plunge in the price of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). Block famously has a large stockpile of Bitcoin. But unfortunately for the company, this would have dropped a hefty 7.5% or so over the past 24 hours thanks to the price of Bitcoin itself dropping by that number.
But Block wasn't the only US tech company copping a pounding last night, although it was one of the larger fallers. We had Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) drop more than 8%, and Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) fall by more than 5%.
Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX All Technology Index (ASX: XTX) is also taking a beating, down 5.41% at the time of writing.
It sure is a tough time to be a tech share.
At the current Block share price, this ASX 200 fintech share has a market capitalisation of US$41.34 billion.
