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IF you’ve been keeping up with my market close articles this week you already know two things. First, it’s been a great week for rare earth juniors. Secondly, it’s been a great week for gold explorers.
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Except a dip in gold prices in the last 24 hours spread some fear into the market on Friday, and so too did the (perhaps natural) waning of excitement regarding a potential US-Australia critical minerals deal to be announced on Tuesday Australian time.
As for gold, don’t expect that dip to mean anything significant.
As of 4pm AEDT Friday, those losses have basically been erased – an insane show of confidence in the yellow metal, and, perhaps an indictment on our modern times. (Which one fairly would not care about whatsoever if you bought gold last year.)
What will happen with rare earths sentiment in Week 43 remains harder to guess, probably because Trump’s meeting with Anthony Albanese is gong to be defined by the fact Trump is well aware he needs us and we need him – which could lead to some distractions.
But Canberra have made it obvious they’re just going to align themselves with Donald, our increased military spending commitments are evidence of that, and it also appears that Donald Trump has decided to leave Australia more or less alone.
We haven’t had any other headaches since the 10% tariff imposition, and, despite a brief flare up of attention given to our pharmaceutical benefits scheme, that’s been about it.
The fact that the President of the United States is preoccupied with wokeness, typically the kind of culture war reserved for first year university students, remains concerning, but it can’t be denied that politically the strategy works.
(In between the lines: the implication is that by subsidising the price of medications and not giving absolute free reigns to the private health industry broadly, we’re communists. I haven’t met anybody who thinks communism holds relevance since I was last on a uni campus in 2017.)
So there could be flashpoints. It will also be interesting to see Anthony Albanese deal with Donald Trump at length and not just over a phonecall. I can’t help but think they mightn’t actually gel, then again, maybe Albo’s good at putting on a boring face.
At any rate Ambassador Kevin Rudd has been asking ASX explorers, particularly those with projects in the US, to brief him on their projects ahead of the meeting. The best thing Albo can probably do is not bring him along.
But the fact he’s asking ASX companies for briefs indicates that, yes, mineral deals will be a thing of discussion. So what stocks to pick that might benefit?
Consider this. MP Materials, the American explorer within whom the US gov’t bought a stake earlier this year (as well as guaranteeing a floor price for NdPr) is headed by a CEO who’s also an enthusiastic Republican donor.
Connect the dots.
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