ASX Large Caps: Shares burned by Fed comments; New Hope declares $30m buyback

The ASX 200 sank almost 2% on Thursday following the Fed’s 75bp hike last night
All sectors except Comm Services were in the red
Woolworths reported sluggish profit growth

Aussie shares sank almost 2% on Thursday as investors reacted to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments overnight.

Shortly after dishing out another jumbo 75bp hike, Powell told reporters that it was “very premature” to consider pausing rate increases.

He did however say earlier that a slowdown in rate hikes could happen “as soon as the next meeting or the one after that”.

Jeff Schulze, Investment Strategist and Josh Jamner, Investment Strategy Analyst at ClearBridge Investments noted:

“While the current selloff is now 10 months old in the US, it remains much shorter than the 16-month average that post-WWII bear markets have lasted. The bottoming process is a bumpy road that typically sees both ups and downs, requiring investor patience.”

On the ASX, all 11 sectors except for Comm Services were in the red today as Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Staples, Utilities and Real Estate all fell by 2%.

Woolworths (ASX:WOW) grabbed the headline in the large cap segment as it reported a sluggish 1.8% increase in Q1 sales to $16.36 billion.

The WOW share price tanked 3% after the report.

Coal stocks bucked trends in the Energy sector after New Hope (ASX:NHC) surged 6% following a buyback announcement.

New Hope said it will undertake an on-market buy-back for up to $300 million to commence on or about 17 November, and be completed within 12 months.

Australia’s trade surplus meanwhile has hit $12.4 billion in September according to a data release by the ABS today, driven mainly gas exports. The figure beat expectations of $8.5 billion.

Imports on the other hand remained flat, lifting just 0.4%. The Aussie dollar had earlier slipped to US63.7c.

Looking ahead to tonight’s Wall St, the US will release a slew of economics data including: trade balance, labour costs and productivity, and the ISM services index.

BIG CAP WINNERS

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Code	Name	Price	% Change	Volume	Market Cap
PPT	Perpetual Limited	28.69	7%	1,206,989	$1,541,588,778
NHC	New Hope Corporation	6.075	6%	5,295,467	$5,034,945,692
DOW	Downer EDI Limited	4.825	6%	3,518,075	$3,071,658,600
HGH	Heartland Group	1.65	4%	4,287	$1,114,407,793
A2M	The A2 Milk Company	5.5	4%	10,677,098	$3,919,069,903
GNE	Genesis Energy Ltd	2.62	3%	47,486	$2,685,679,853
AAC	Australian Agricult.	1.81	3%	234,537	$1,060,869,475
SNZ	Summerset Grp Hldgs	9.07	2%	3,496	$2,054,234,512
JDO	Judo Cap Holdings	1.265	2%	10,156,563	$1,365,317,042
APM	APM Human Services	3.325	2%	623,700	$2,980,841,325
AIZ	Air New Zealand	0.745	2%	864,134	$2,458,978,950
LFG	Liberty Fin Group	3.49	2%	17,932	$1,038,312,000
OCL	Objective Corp	14.14	2%	23,416	$1,320,633,690
TLS	Telstra Group	3.955	2%	14,667,118	$44,946,722,403
YAL	Yancoal Aust Ltd	5.18	2%	3,317,056	$6,734,241,129

Perpetual (ASX:PPT) jumped almost 8% today after it rejected a $1.7bn takeover bid from Regal Partners (ASX:RPL) at $30. The PPT board said the offer undervalued the company.

a2 Milk (ASX:A2M) rose 4% after news that the US FDA has exercised its discretion to allow a2M to import infant milk formula products into the US.

Product to be supplied to the US has the same formulation as a2 Platinum but has different scoops, mixing instructions and labelling requirements to meet the FDA requirements.

BIG CAP LOSERS

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Code	Name	Price	% Change	Volume	Market Cap
RBD	Restaurant Brands NZ	7.08	-19%	10,377	$1,090,389,491
SLR	Silver Lake Resource	1.115	-6%	4,576,152	$1,097,098,313
WAF	West African Res Ltd	1.03	-5%	2,307,485	$1,102,791,114
ABC	Adbri Limited	1.6375	-5%	2,079,723	$1,119,256,257
RRL	Regis Resources	1.505	-5%	1,817,725	$1,200,491,221
IMU	Imugene Limited	0.1925	-6%	17,489,785	$1,290,364,911
NVX	Novonix Limited	2.565	-5%	2,865,225	$1,309,168,942
CNI	Centuria Capital	1.6425	-6%	310,231	$1,385,732,487
LKE	Lake Resources	1.0525	-6%	16,543,006	$1,550,852,061
DEG	De Grey Mining	1.0575	-6%	1,627,768	$1,725,691,425
MFG	Magellan Fin Grp Ltd	9.815	-5%	1,071,593	$1,900,503,222
PDL	Pendal Group Ltd	4.505	-11%	7,765,334	$1,938,736,419
PDN	Paladin Energy Ltd	0.825	-5%	9,788,611	$2,592,052,622
SQ2	Block	87.27	-6%	900,489	$3,446,847,691
DMP	Domino Pizza	53.35	-11%	1,041,494	$5,196,409,324
LLC	Lendlease Group	7.81	-9%	2,689,359	$5,920,213,990
BSL	BlueScope Steel Ltd	15.92	-5%	1,238,795	$7,845,821,928