“Clearly it’s going to be a tough time for retail over the next 12 months,” Oberg said. “It’s probably the start of what might be quite a few downgrades in the space, although share prices may be pricing that in already.”

Shares in Telstra closed at $3.83 after new chief executive Vicki Brady told its annual general meeting Telstra expected to meet its guidance of fiscal 2023 free cash flow of $1.1 billion.

GrainCorp shares closed up 4.2 per cent. Chief executive Robert Spurway said the company’s agribusiness and processing businesses were on track to deliver record financial results, with a favourable weather outlook set to deliver a bumper crop.

Loading

“We are operating our supply chains at close to full capacity and our teams have done an outstanding job in overcoming disruptions relating to weather and COVID to export 7.9 million tonnes of grain year-to-date,” he said.

The ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Index was down 1.1 per cent last week to its lowest level since mid-August, despite the Reserve Bank’s smaller-than-expected 0.25 percentage point rate rise. ANZ head of Australian economics David Plank said the fall was mainly driven by a 3.2 per cent drop in confidence among those paying off a mortgage.

The Australian dollar continued to post fresh two-year lows as investors flocked to the safety of the US dollar. It was 0.6 per cent lower at 62.57 US cents at 4.10pm AEDT.

Loading

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell by 0.5 per cent, the Dow Jones shed 0.3 per cent and the Nasdaq lost 1 per cent.

Investors could get a more detailed picture of the Fed’s thinking on Wednesday when the central bank releases minutes from its latest policy meeting, where it made another extra-big interest rate increase of three-quarters of a percentage point.

“Nobody’s arguing about whether inflation is falling, it’s simply the slope of the slide,” said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds. “The inflation battle is being won and the problem is the recession battle may be getting lost unnecessarily.”

Tweet of the day:

Quote of the day: “We should all avoid hubris because no one can be complacent, and no organisation can ever be 100 per cent sure that it is completely protected and safe.” Telstra chair John Mullen defended rival Optus at Telstra’s annual general meeting on Tuesday, where he also announced he would retire from the telco within two years.

You may have missed: Chip-related stocks in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan slumped, contributing to a wipeout of more than $240 billion from the sector’s global market value after the Biden administration imposed curbs on China’s access to semiconductor technology. The curbs are expected to have implications for companies with plants in China, not just those based in the US, and place further strain on supply chains. -Bloomberg

With AP.

The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.