ASX Large Stocks: Carnage as Fed turns super hawkish; Miners have worst week since August

ASX 200 fell 1.5% and finished the week lower by
The Mining Index had its largest weekly drop since August
Markets have been spooked after hawkish US Fed comments overnight

It was carnage across the board as local shares took a direct hit from the hawkish US Fed comments overnight.

Mining and Tech were the worst performing sectors today, as the ASX 200 index plunged 1.57%. For the week however, the index closed flat.

The Mining sector was down 3% today, and ended the week 4% lower, its biggest weekly loss since August. Iron ore miners have particularly struggled this week as China’s snap lockdowns continued.

Overnight, US stocks got hammered following hawkish comments by Fed Governor Jerome Powell that suggested he would like to see a 50bp rate increase in May, and faster ‘front-loading” hikes after that.

The US 10 year yield surged to its highest level on the news to 2.91%.

Meanwhile, a note out of Westpac says that it expects a 40bp hike by the RBA in its June meeting.

“We anticipate that market and media expectations will shift towards a 40 basis point move over the next six weeks and the anticipated shock to confidence will be contained,” said Bill Evans, chief economist at Westpac.

BIG CAP WINNERS

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Code	Name	Price	% Change	Volume	Market Cap
BKL	Blackmores Limited	93.77	22.11	554,308	$1,493,614,262
MCY	Mercury NZ Limited	5.87	4.82	2,225	$7,766,040,128
AKE	Allkem Limited	11.85	4.59	3,026,235	$7,224,666,114
KLS	Kelsian Group Ltd	6.005	3.53	427,275	$1,557,857,287
RRL	Regis Resources	2.195	2.57	1,959,100	$1,615,755,480
NAN	Nanosonics Limited	5.64	2.36	884,854	$1,665,729,764
IFT	Infratil Limited	8.72	2.35	21,860	$6,168,340,119
PNV	Polynovo Limited	1.675	2.13	677,543	$1,131,981,712
WHC	Whitehaven Coal	7.3	2.10	2,728,785	$6,358,152,951
IMD	Imdex Limited	2.2	1.85	1,137,105	$1,091,782,025
IRE	IRESS Limited	10.19	1.80	367,758	$1,869,762,635
CMM	Capricorn Metals	4.59	1.77	601,822	$1,694,669,369

Bellevue Gold (ASX:BGL) rose 2% after releasing its reserve update to investors. New results, which came from Deacon North, included: 2.1m @ 42.8g/t gold from 411.6m, including 0.6m @ 142.0 g/t gold.

BIG CAP LOSERS

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Code	Name	Price	% Change	Volume	Market Cap
ANN	Ansell Limited	24.04	-13.43	2,083,083	$3,521,713,116
AZJ	Aurizon Holdings Ltd	3.80	-5.13	8,233,828	$7,362,815,928
LLC	Lendlease Group	8.14	-4.85	2,264,165	$5,893,703,656
IVC	InvoCare Limited	12.14	-4.71	443,241	$1,835,333,738
VSL	Vulcan Steel	7.71	-4.34	168,162	$1,059,153,090
NIC	Nickel Industries	0.85	-3.98	9,370,067	$2,661,346,400
IGO	IGO Limited	14.79	-3.96	4,736,335	$11,661,924,320
A4N	Alpha Hpa Ltd	1.14	-3.81	1,220,781	$1,012,211,173
DDR	Dicker Data Limited	7.99	-3.62	294,399	$1,493,561,210
MTS	Metcash Limited	3.62	-3.60	2,568,455	$3,620,781,008
EVT	EVT Limited	11.31	-3.38	64,830	$1,887,534,195
PNV	Polynovo Limited	1.58	-3.22	1,148,393	$1,125,079,384
ALL	Aristocrat Leisure	38.36	-2.61	497,276	$25,752,179,052

Megaport (ASX:MP1) lost another 10% today, bringing its loss for the week to 25%. The data centre specialist has been struggling after reporting a disappointing Q3 where revenue growth only increased by 5% to $28m.

Westpac (ASX:WBC) lost over 1% today after the Fed Court fined the bank $113m for a series of breaches and failures across multiple businesses. This includes a penalty of $40 million for charging fees to over 11,800 deceased customers.