Good morning,

The local bourse is heading for more pain today after Wall Street's S&P 500 fell 2.9 per cent overnight. Jittery investors have already wiped $160bn from the value of Australian shares in two days amid growing fears the world’s biggest economy could sink into recession. 

Meanwhile, the corporate regulator has granted an ANZ employee whistleblower status after the trader raised concerns about conduct in the bank’s markets division, sources say, as a probe into a controversial $14bn bond issuance escalates.

And Australia's 200 largest listed companies now only need to add another 30 women to their boards to reach a long-held gender target of 40 per cent female directors but there are still some firms lagging their peers, new research shows.