BPO TV

The Australian market performed exactly as expected today following the sharp sell-off on Wall Street on Friday as investor fears of prolonged interest rate hikes were strengthened on the back of comments made by Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole Symposium. The ASX200 closed Monday’s session 1.95% lower, with all sectors closing the day in negative territory led by technology stocks tumbling more than 4%.

Technology stocks were the hardest hit in today’s sell-off as investors flee growth stocks that have the potential to be heavily impacted by interest rate hikes. The gold sector also fell more than 4% amid weakness in the price of the commodity.

The best performing stocks today were Tyro Payments (ASX:TYR) after the payments solution provider released FY22 results including merchant numbers up 10%, transaction value up 34% and revenue up 37%, and the a2 Milk Company (ASX:A2M) also soared after releasing strong FY22 results and providing solid growth outlook for FY23.

On the losing front, PolyNovo (ASX:PNV) nosedived more than 17% during the session today after the medical device company released disappointing results last week. Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) also dropped more than 9% today.

Looking at economic data, preliminary Australian retail sales data for July released today came in at 1.3% for the month which well exceeded the market expectations of an increase of just 0.3%. The retail sales in July may have beat expectations but is still very low compared to a rise of 16.5% last July.

The most traded stocks by Bell Direct clients today were Commonwealth Bank (ASX:CBA), BHP Group (ASX:BHP) and National Australia Bank (ASX:NAB).

As for what to watch overnight, investors will be keeping a close eye on Wall Street to see whether the broad market sell-off from Friday will continue this week as investor optimism was dampened by the idea that interest rates will continue to rise for the foreseeable future.