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Good Afternoon and welcome to Market Close for Wednesday 22nd of October, I’m Jon Davidson. It was a sell-heavy Wednesday intraday as another dip in gold prices last night caused some degree of panic, though, if you’ve got a good risk tolerance, you’d probably be safe to say just wait a week and see what happens.
What’s really going on here is two things. First, it’s profit taking, that’s obvious. Secondly, we could be seeing a revival of confidence in the US. Much gold momentum has been driven by central banks buying gold instead of US Treasuries, that latter class being the largest market on earth, because, well, we’ve got a very different style of management coming from Washington lately.
But after a successful Australia-US meeting which wasn’t really defined by typical Trumpian strongmanning, if you ignore Kevin Rudd, and some softer rhetoric on China – both Scott Bessent and Trump will be meeting with Chinese leaders in the coming week or two – the market is maybe feeling more optimistic in US excellence.
Still, bloodshed is in the eye of the beholder, and on the whole it’s fair to say not too much has changed. Gold prices are simply taking a breather – and the AI bubble is as big as ever.
Looking at sectors, Materials led laggards down losing over -3% intraday, by far bringing the bourse down with it. Energy stocks actually led the gainers in the final hour, up one and a half percent.
Let’s turn to companies in the green:
Astron Limited emerged an unexpected winner of the Albo-Trump meeting given that it plans to mine rare earths in Oz then process them in the US.
Weebit Nano soared again after reporting record revenues, the stock is now heading back towards the heady valuations it enjoyed during COVID.
Finally, 4DX Medical is flirting with $2/sh once again as its non-radiation based lung imaging tech was adopted by Stanford University for its medical clinic.
And as for the reds?
Sunrise Energy Metals pared off for a second day after a recent meteoric rise before the Trump-Albo meeting, perhaps not too surprising.
Meanwhile, American Rare Earths did the same as excitement pre-critical-minerals deal appears now to be taking a look in the mirror and asking itself “what’s next?”
Finally, Geneis Minerals sold off intraday as the gold price dip caused panic in markets, or at least, sent out a signal to more risk-tolerant investors that now is the time to take profits.
That’s Market Close for Wednesday, I’m Jon Davidson, have a great night and we’ll see you on Thursday.
