The Wrap: ASX rebound fails to save market from another week of declines

Welcome to your five-minute recap of the trading day, and how the experts saw it.

The numbers: The ASX 200 recovered all of Thursday’s losses with a 1.9 per cent rebound to close at 7075.1 points, but it was not enough to prevent it finishing in the red for a fourth week in a row. Every sector closed in positive territory on Friday. Consumer staples was the only sector not to post a gain of at least 1 per cent, with the tech sector leading the rebound with a 7 per cent rise.

The lifters: Block Inc. 15%, Life360 14.3%, Polynovo 14%

The laggards: IGO -3.5%, Reece -3.1%, Gold Road Resources -2.3%

The lowdown: Positive Wall St futures helped the ASX 200 close at its intraday high on Friday, bookending market-boosting comments overnight from Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell. He eased market concerns, once again, that the Fed would resort to more aggressive interest-rate hikes being needed after another set of bad inflation numbers were released this week.

But there is plenty more for investors to be concerned about.

Iron ore had its biggest weekly drop since mid-February as China’s spreading virus restrictions and worsening property crisis hit demand and sent the materials sector 4 per cent lower for the week.

MFS Investment Management Portfolio Manager Rob Almeida said the broad-based market retreat – which includes the energy sector in Australia – may also reflect that equities and crypto are no longer the only game in town.

“With higher rates, cash is becoming a viable alternative to risky assets, leading to higher asset-class correlations,” he said. Right on cue, CBA lifted rates on its deposit accounts for 2 million customers from 0.05 per cent to 0.3 per cent.