The Australian stockmarket is in uncharted waters this afternoon, after falling for the 10th consecutive day, something that is unheard of since the great depression.

The ASX 200 and the All Ords shed around 170 points each in early trading, as the market lost more than $40 billion in value in the first 20 minutes of trading, but recovered a touch to be down around 140-150 points at midday.

The plunge came after Wall Street fell heavily on the back of a bigger than expected loss from Merrill Lynch, another fall in US housing starts and building permits in December and a poor survey of manufacturing for part of the East Coast

BHP Billiton lost as much as $2 to $34.50, Rio Tinto fell $8.60 to $110 and Commonwealth Bank sank $1.22 to $50.31. BHP’s bid for Rio is looking problematic.

The Australian dollar fell almost one and a half cents overnight to a low of US87.44c, as investors sold off high yield investments considered relatively risky.

The Australian market has now lost almost 10% (or more than $150 billion) this month alone in what Bloomberg says is the worst start to a new year ever for the ASX.

The losses have wiped tens of billions from the value of superannuation funds, with those 60-year-olds and older who restructured their holdings last June in line with changes from the Howard Government possibly the biggest losers.

Many would be facing actual losses on their investments as the ASX is now at its lowest level since the brief dip last August when the credit crunch erupted.

Wall Street is now at 10-month lows or more in many sectors, while Tokyo is at two-year lows and Hong and China are weakening. London is in bear territory (like Tokyo), which is a 20% fall from the peak. Other European markets are deeply in the red as economic prospects for the eurozone economies worsen.