We signed off Friday speculating on we would be walking into after Jerome Powell’s big speech. The answer was a bloodbath. It was predictably ugly. The S&P/ASX 200 shed 1.95% to 6965.5, logging its largest daily decline since June 30. Every sector closed deep in the red, led by information technology which tumbled 4.4%. Financials, materials and consumer discretionary didn’t fare much better, losing between 2.1% to 2.4%. The underperformance of the latter came despite Australian retail sales surging 1.3% in July, nearly four times greater than the median economist forecasts. Most discretionary categories saw impressive gains but it didn’t matter one iota on a day like this. Sell first, ask questions later. Defensive sectors such as consumer staples, utilities, industrials and healthcare managed to limit the damage for the overall index, only falling between 0.4% to 0.9%. Some of the declines at the individual level were breathtaking. There was the odd winner from reporting season, however. Heavily shorted Tyro surged 11.9% on the back of its results. McMillan Shakespeare jumped 11.4% after announcing a buyback alongside its FY update.

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