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There were plenty of IPOs on the ASX through 2025, if you compare it to a deader-than-doornails 2024, and in retrospect, a lot of new companies did pretty well. Tetratherix (ASX:TTX) was the standout biotech listing (and, per the ASX itself, one of an extremely small number that listed this year).
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In the same breath, we also had big names like Greatland (ASX:GGP) coming to the resources-heavy bourse, and then more left-of-field characters like Sea Forest (ASX:SEA).
All of the aforementioned are doing well, currently above their listing prices. And that’s the case for quite a few debutant companies that have listed this year, as the market clearly heats up – again, at least compared to 2024 – when it comes to a risk-on approach for newly-listed companies.
But this isn’t one of those articles. We are taking a reverse approach, and asking the question: As of mid-Week 51, which ASX companies that’ve listed this year aren’t doing so well, looking back at the year that was?
Here are the wooden spoon awards, as picked by me in mid-December.
Moonlight Resources (ASX:ML8)
- Sector: Mining
- Market cap: $9M
- 1Y returns: -20%
What’s going on? Moonlight Resources is a junior explorer focused on two highly-volatile and reactive commodities, when it comes to benchmark pricing: rare earth elements (REEs), and, uranium. In this way, ML8 was perhaps always destined to be curse with high levels of swell on its charts; since the Trump-Xi meeting, market excitement around REEs and critical minerals has calmed down, especially as the Washington investment into MP Materials falls out of immediate market memory. Uranium, on the other hand, is always reactive to sentiment, and sometimes it can be hard to figure out what investors are thinking. On top of all of this, the stock isn’t on many radars yet; liquidity is low. The market likely wants drill results.
Temas Resources (ASX:TIO)
- Sector: Mining
- Market cap: $16M
- 1Y returns: -15%
Temas Resources is focused on North American green mineral processing, as well as being an REE and critical minerals explorer itself. Like Moonlight, we’ve seen some cooling off in that thematic; in late November the company wrapped up drilling at its La Blache Vanadium project in Quebec with results expected back in January of 2026. Until that time, investors should expect TIO to stay subdued; moreso than Moonlight the company also has a fairly pronounced illiquidity problem. On Monday, December 15, $0 worth of shares traded hands in the company intraday.
Saluda Medical (ASX:SLD)
- Sector: Healthcare
- Market cap: $380M
- 1Y returns: -43%
Saluda Medical, after Tetratherix, was the only other significant biotech listing this year, and unlike the former, its 1Y returns currently don’t look great. The company originally wanted to list at $2.65/sh but hit the bourse lower than that; shares were worth $1.51 in Monday arvo trades on 15 December. Saluda has a device that it calls “neural-sensing” which the company wants to use in spinal cord stimulation treatments; it also has a former CTO of hearing aid giant Cochlear as its founder, so there’s some pedigree there. Why is the company’s share price falling? All in all, I think the market wants to see more from the company in terms of real-world marketing of its device, and, inking of contracts. The company listed with a lot of hope behind it, but it’s fair to note it only listed in the last two months, so perhaps here’s one to watch in early 2026. But sometimes, a big name on your board clearly isn’t enough.
VBX Ltd (ASX:VBX)
- Sector: VBX Ltd
- Market cap: $20M
- 1Y returns: -18%
What’s going on?: Well, you can’t blame sentiment around REEs and critical minerals for this one. VBX is actually a bauxite explorer (used to produce aluminium) and infill drilling assay results issued earlier this month appear to have saved some momentum – writing this on Monday 15 December, the company is having a strong WoW run which appears to be bolstered by the results which included aluminium grades up to 44% from surface at Wuudagu. So this could be another stock to watch heading into 2026; it looks like the market sold off IPO excitement waiting for results, and now it’s digesting them. At least one major aluminum benchmark is up +10% MoM at the time of writing, though, Chinese economic demand expectations will continue to inform the market.
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