Here are the stories from the S&P/ASX 200 (INDEXASX: XJO)(ASX: XJO) and Australian finance circles on Thursday. Rask Media has your financial news headlines sorted.

First, here are the data points:

Australian Dollar ($A) (AUDUSD): 70.62 US cents

Dow Jones (DJI): down 2.4%

Oil (WTI): $US66.26 per barrel

Gold: $US1,235 per ounce

Finance News Today

In overseas markets, the USA’s Dow Jones fell 2.4% and the tech-heavy NASDAQ lost more than 4% as some pundits suggest investors were worried about geopolitical tensions with China and issues further abroad.

However, no-one could bed down a genuine reason why the major bourses and companies like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) fell so far.

Closer to home and Australian share market news sees a number of headlines.

AMP Limited (ASX: AMP) has announced that it’s going to sell its ‘Wealth Protection’ and other mature businesses for $3.3 billion to ResolutionLife.

AMP is one of Australia’s largest wealth management, banking and insurance groups. However, it has been under major scrutiny due to findings in the Royal Commission.

Read more: AMP Sell To Resolution

The Super Retail Group Ltd (ASX: SUL) share price fell nearly 11% on Wednesday after giving its trading update for the first 16 weeks of FY19 and announcing there will be a new CEO. Super Retail Group is a retail business which operates Supercheap Auto, Rebel, BCF and Macpac.

Read more: Super Retail’s Margin Pressure

Outgoing Super Retail CEO Peter Birtles warned conditions may be getting harder: “There are some signs that the retail consumer is being more cautious so it will be very important that our businesses get the balance right between balancing sales and managing margin as we move into the major trading period of the year.”

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