Evening Wrap: ASX 200 smashed, tech and miners lead selloff, Nasdaq futures down -1.2%

The S&P/ASX 200 closed 139 points lower, down -1.95%.

Powell's determination to hike until 'the job is done' smashes equity markets, A2 Milk posts a massive earnings turnaround, Fortescue profits tumble 40% and markets are sticking to the seasonality script.

Let's dive in.

ASX 200, All Ords and All Tech intraday overview

Markets

• All 11 sectors declined

• Defensives including Utilities, Staples and Industrials outperformed

• Tech, Materials, Financials and Discretionary led to the downside

• 94% of the top 200 companies declined

Stocks

• A2 Milk (ASX: A2M) +9.9% posted 42.3% net profit growth in FY22 to NZ$114.7m, ahead of Bloomberg estimates of NZ$112m. The Board also approved a NZ$150m share buyback program

  • FY23 guidance: "The company is expecting high single digit revenue growth in FY23. 1H23 growth is expected to be significantly higher than 2H23 growth.”

• Northern Star (ASX: NST) -1.6% delivered to FY22 guidance of 1,561koz at an AISC of A$1,633/oz. Underlying profits fell -27% to $273m reflecting a 7% increase in average realised gold prices but a 45% jump in cost of sales 

• Mineral Resources (ASX: MIN) -1.7% reported a -72% decline in net profits to $349.2m as record iron ore exports were offset by a sharp decline in realised prices

• Fortescue (ASX: FMG) -4.9% profits fell -40% in FY22 to US$6.2bn, in-line with Bloomberg estimates of US$6.1bn. Shareholders will receive a final dividend of $1.21 per share, down -43% compared to a year ago

• NextDC (ASX: NXT) -6.4% reported a record FY22 result, with underlying EBITDA up 26% to $169m, ahead of the upgraded guidance provided during 1H22 results. NextDC expects FY23 EBITDA to be between $190-198m 

  • NextDC CEO: “In a high-inflation and supply constrained economic environment, the continued performance of NEXTDC’s leading national portfolio of premium data centres reinforces the highly resilient nature of the Company’s digital infrastructure assets.”

• Aussie Broadband (ASX: ABB) -15.3% posted 107% EBITDA growth to $39.4, exceeding its previous guidance range of $38-39m

  • FY23 trading update: “While there are several competitor low/no-margin offers in the residential broadband market at present, Aussie Broadband will not chase growth at any cost and is focused on striking the right balance between growth and margin.”

• Grange Resources (ASX: GRR) -28% half-year profits fell -36% to $205.9m. The company issued a final dividend of 2 cents per share

  • At a closing price of 97.5 cents, this represents a yield of 2.05%

Economy

• Australia retail sales rose 1.3% month-on-month in July from 0.2% in June

  • Consensus expected a rise of 0.3%

  • “After slowing growth in recent months, the 1.3 per cent rise in July was the largest since the 1.6 per cent rise in March 2022,” said Ben Dorber, head of retail statistics at the ABS

  • "Turnover rose in five of the six retail industries in July 2022. This shows that, despite cost-of-living pressures, households are continuing to spend."

Commodities 

• Iron ore futures on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange fell -2%

• Coal futures up 2.3% to US$427 a tonne

• Aluminium spot prices up 2.2% to US$2,480 a tonne

Scans

Latest news

Post market charts

S&P/ASX 200: Pulling back to the 50-day moving average. This week will be crucial as to whether or not the market can salvage an orderly pullback or if things deteriorate even further. It feels like we went from "June was the bottom" to "wow we could actually re-test those lows". The market seems to have gotten complacent on the idea of a pivot and now its rushing to price-in an aggressive Fed and higher recession risks.

Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index

S&P/ASX 200 Energy Index: Small intraday bounce off June highs. Brent crude rose 0.96% to US$101.6 a barrel. 

ASX 200 Energy Index weekly chart (Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index)

S&P/ASX 200 Materials Index: Slammed pretty hard. Interesting to see Fortescue profits fall -40% to US$6.2bn, which was still its second largest profit on record. Fortescue forecasts C1 cash costs to be 13-18% higher in FY23.

Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index

S&P/ASX 200 Info Tech: A classic risk-off day sees the most growth-heavy and risky sectors sell off the hardest. Tech index aggressively rolling over. It's worth noting that Nasdaq futures are currently down another -1.26% (as at 4:40 pm AEST)

Source: TradingView, Annotations by Market Index

Food for thought

Risk-off: Risk sectors are leading the selloff. Betashares S&P/ASX Australian Technology ETF fell more than -4.0%, a continuation of weakness we're seeing in other risk barometers like ARKK and Bitcoin 

Large caps and defensives: Interesting to see defensive, large cap utilities, staples and energy names outperform on a relative basis. They're still bleeding, just bleeding less. Notably:

• Transurban (ASX: TCL) +0.1%

• Santos (ASX: STO) -0.6%

• Woolworths (ASX: WOW) -0.6%

• CSL (ASX: CSL) -0.8%

• Telstra (ASX: TLS) -1.0%

• QBE Insurance (ASX: QBE) -1.05%

Big week for Fed speeches: Massive lineup of Fed speeches for more hints about interest rates. Although Powell made it quite clear that the Fed is ready to hike until the job is done.

• Mon: Brainard

• Tue: Barkin and Williams

• Wed: Mester and Bostic

Following the seasonality script: I've posted quite a few same same but different charts about US market seasonality from various sources. Here's another one.

Source: Sentiment Trader

I'll see you guys in early October for the Christmas rally.