It hasn't been a great day for the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) this Thursday so far. At the time of writing, the ASX 200 has lost a depressing 1.58% and is sitting at 6,851 points. That comes after an initial spike into positive territory this morning. But that's nothing compared to the Xero Limited (ASX: XRO) share price today.
Xero shares are currently down a nasty 4.91% at $106.68 a share. But Xero descended as low as $103 a share earlier today, a drop of 8% on the previous closing price.
That is a new 52-week low for Xero shares. It also puts this online accounting software-as-a-service (SaaS) company a long way from its last record high of $156.65 a share that we saw just back in early November. That means this once-high-flying ASX growth share has given back around 32% of its value over just the past 3 months or so.
It also means the Xero share price is now down around 25% over the past 12 months. Saying that, long-term shareholders are still well out in front. Even after these nasty falls, the Xero share price remains up a very pleasing 475% over the past 5 years.
So let's take a closer look at this dramatic slump in value that Xero shareholders have had to suffer through recently.
Why are Xero shares hitting new lows today?
Well, it's not entirely clear, unfortunately. There hasn't been much in the way of big news or announcements from Xero recently. Indeed, the last major development out of the company was the pre-Christmas announcement that Xero is to acquire the Canadian tax software company TaxCycle for C$75 million (AU$83 million).
So we could mark Xero's descent to a new 52-week low down to the savage sell-off in ASX tech shares that has been playing out over the past month or two. This period has seen most ASX tech shares smashed, mirroring similar moves over on the US markets.
The tech-heavy NASDAQ-100 (INDEXNASDAQ: NDX) Index has lost a painful 14.5% or so since 27 December, putting it well and truly in 'correction' territory. Over a similar time span, the S&P/ASX All Technology Index (ASX: XTX) has given up more than 20%.
So it hasn't just been Xero getting whacked recently. We've seen steep falls in shares like Afterpay… sorry Block Inc (ASX: SQ2), Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P), Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) and WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC) over the past month or so.
But it might not be all bad for Xero shareholders. My Fool colleague Zach recently covered 3 different top ASX brokers who are still seeing some significant upside in the Xero share price from here. So make sure to check that out.
At the current Xero share price, this ASX 200 share has a market capitalisation of $16.72 billion.
