It’s Friyay, but local stocks weren’t celebrating into the weekend as the ASX 200 fell more than 1% lower in afternoon trade.

Investor attention centred around some rumblings in the bond market, after the RBA refrained from buying three-year government debt this week — a clear indicator that its post-COVID yield-curve control program could soon be coming to and end.

Bond yields rose sharply across the board on Friday afternoon and in response, the ASX selloff intensified into the closing bell.

Big banks were among the worst performers, as the ASX 200 Financials index fell by 1.82%.

Within resources, gold stocks fell sharply with smaller losses for the iron ore majors.

The worst performing sector was the ASX 200 REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) index, which dropped almost 2.5%.

BIG CAP WINNERS

Swipe or scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort.

Wordpress Table Plugin
 

Among large caps with news, UK-based insurer PSC Insurance (ASX:PSI) rose strongly after releasing an investor presentation.

Also performing strongly was battery technology company Novonix (ASX:NVX), which rose to new all-time highs following the release of its quarterly 4C activities report.

Another winner was $14.3bn medical supplies company ResMed (ASX:RMD), which presented its own quarterly update.

RMD reported “double-digit growth in both topline and bottom-line metrics, driven by ongoing high demand for our sleep and respiratory care products, and steady growth across our software-as-a-service business”, the company said.

Notable performers without any updates included $2.2bn uranium stock Paladin Energy (ASX:PDN), which climbed almost 3% in Friday trade.

BIG CAP LOSERS

Swipe or scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort.

Wordpress Table Plugin

Large cap laggards were highlighted by Vulcan Energy (ASX:VUL), as short seller J Capital drew first blood following the release of its short report on the zero-carbon lithium play earlier this week.

VUL shares came out of a trading halt this morning and fell more than 10% at the opening bell, failing to make up ground in afternoon trade to finish more than 15% lower.

Stockhead’s Josh Chiat has the full details of this morning’s price action here.