ASX Market Close: With no historic swings in volatility, Tuesday trades felt ‘normal’

Good afternoon and welcome to HotCopper’s market close for Tuesday 15th of April, I’m Jonathon Davidson.

It felt like more of a normal day today with no historic swings in volatility one way or the other. As of 4pm Sydney time, US futures are flattish red, but anything could happen in eight hours. 

The ASX200 ended at 7,760 points; looking at local sectors, Health Care was in the lead up 1.3% with Staples leading the laggards down 1%.

Looking at companies in the green,

Defence-focused cold spray welding specialist Titomic jumped 19.5% after it inked a deal with arms giant Northrop Grumman in developing high-performance pressure vessels. Shares closed at 25cps.

Elsewhere, Gina Rinehart-backed Arafura Rare Earths jumped 5.6% along with a basket of ASX-listed rare earths stocks as China moved to further ban rare earth exports in response to Trump Tariffs. While neodymium prices are yet to shift, Arafura ended up at 19cps.

Finally, biotech favourite Botanix jumped 6.3% even as the company announced a $40M capital raising to roll out its flagship product Sofdra, effectively a drug treating an excessive sweating condition. Shares ended at 38cps.

And what about companies in the red? 

Bellevue Gold fell an eye-watering -21.4% after shares came out of suspension following Monday’s news Macquarie is taking issue with stock price performance, leading to a $156M raising ultimately allowing Bellevue to close out gold hedges and, hopefully, exploit record spot market prices. Bellevue closed down at 90cps.

Elsewhere, KFC supplier Collins Foods fell -7.5% as the market digested a strategic review and management change presentation from the company, notably, Collins had made the move to drop ties with Taco Bell and is now focusing on an expansion in Germany. Shares ended down at $8.02/sh.

Finally, while shares remain suspended at 11 cents per share, Star Entertainment finally released a financial report, now that the company has a recently secured lifeline from Bally’s Corp. Star posted a statutory net loss of $302M for the first half of FY25, and pointed to a deterioration of trading performance over the period. No kidding. 

That’s HotCopper’s Market Close for Tuesday, I’m Jonathon Davidson, have a great night and we’ll see you tomorrow.