The average discount applied to Fortescue's product in fiscal 2018 was 36 per cent, with the discounts reaching 37 per cent in the three months to June 30.

Thursday's disclosure showed the discount remained wide, but had reduced to 33 per cent during the September quarter.

Peter Ker has the full story here.

The sale of its life business to Resolution will see AMP receive $1.9 billion in cash, issue $300 million in preference shares in AMP Life and take a $1.1 billion "economic interest in mature business and interest in Resolution Life". AMP shares were down 11c or 3.3 per cent to $3.20 by 10.20am.

In an analyst call on Thursday morning acting CEO Mr Mike Wilkins said the executive team hoped the changes would reveal a simpler, more agile business that was better positioned to compete in its core markets.

Jessica Gardner, James Frost and Misa Han have the full story here.

"Market demand for travel remains fundamentally strong and we're seeing some wind-back of competitor capacity growth."

In August, Qantas reported a 14 per cent rise in its underlying profit before tax to $1.6 billion and flagged rising fuel costs as an issue.

Read the full story here.

BHP Billiton is weighing heavily, down 2.9 per cent, CSL is down 1.7 per cent and the major banks are all down more than 1 per cent.

Bellamy's Australia is down 7.5 per cent, Xero has fallen 5.5 per cent, Appen is down 4.9 per cent and Emeco Holdings is down 4.6 per cent.

Newcrest Mining is leading the market with 0.6 per cent advancing, while St Barbara is up 1.9 per cent and Resolute Mining has climbed 2.2 per cent.

There are just six stocks trading higher this morning.

Volatility is still elevated. It's one moment up and one moment down. Price action and sentiment is shifting all in the space of a single session. The extreme vacillations in price and sentiment are wrung by the twisting fortunes of the global economy's two major forces: the Chinese and US economies. Day-to-day, markets are playing out like a game of pong, with one side rising only to strike the ball in the opposite direction to send the other diving lower. Once again, a sharp rally in China's equities just prior to its lunch break yesterday fizzled throughout the day, to the chagrin of non-plussed European and North American equity traders. The remainder of Thursday's session since has seen a sea of red, as the bears one again have-their-way with the market.

Read the full 8@eight here.

AUD -0.3% to 70.62 US cents

On Wall St near 4pm: Dow -2.4% S&P 500 -2.7% Nasdaq -4.4%

In New York, BHP -4.5% Rio -3.9% Atlassian -7.4%

In Europe: Stoxx 50 -0.3% FTSE +0.1% CAC -0.3% DAX -0.7%

Spot gold +0.1% to $US1230.88 an ounce at 2.24pm New York time

Brent crude +0.1% to $US76.49 a barrel

US oil +1% to $US67.07 a barrel

Iron ore +0.6% to $US74.73 a tonne

Dalian iron ore +1.4% to 535 yuan

LME aluminium -0.2% to $US1998 a tonne

LME copper -0.3% to $US6179 a tonne

2-year yield: US 2.83% Australia 2.00%

5-year yield: US 2.94% Australia 2.20%

10-year yield: US 3.10% Australia 2.66% Germany 0.39% Italy 3.60%

US-Australia 10-year yield gap at 6.39am AEDT: 44 basis points

There was no one catalyst for the selling.

Disappointing earnings from AT&T and Texas Instruments drove declines in the communications and semiconductor groups, offsetting a promising outlook from Boeing.

"There's just right now a heightened sensitivity to what can go wrong," Kate Warne, investment strategist at Edward D. Jones & Co, said in an interview at Bloomberg's New York headquarters. "So we will have more of these days where stocks move a lot within the day as everyone's trying to sort through what do today's reports mean."

The yield on the US 10-year note dropped 6 basis points to 3.11 per cent.

Timothy Moore has the full story here.