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Greetings and welcome to HotCopper’s The ASX Today for Wednesday of Week 12, I’m Jon Davidson, and it looks like we could be in for another tame green close if post-lunch trades are anything to go by.
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It appears true for a second day, the worst of the Iran War shocks may be over – or at least, so far, we haven’t had anything else truly shocking rock the boat. There are two ways to monitor this war, really. You can pay attention to constantly changing headlines every twenty minutes, or you can just watch commodities.
Neither Brent nor Gold has staged any real directional change for about a working week now. Gold is basically where it was five days ago, Brent remains hovering just over US$100/bbl. That to me suggests the broader market feels rangebound, too, unsure what to do as the current Iran War situation appears to be ripe to turn into a far longer affair than what markets may have expected.
We’re in the third week of the war now, and markets generally tend to lose interest in things quickly. Don’t forget after last year’s April 2 ‘Liberation Day’ panic, Wall Street recovered its losses just some 30 days later. A little over two weeks ago, the ASX hit a fresh all-time high of 9,200 points before this fall.
It has two more weeks to get there if we want to see another 30-day shrug off, somehow, I don’t think we’ll be so lucky – but if Wall Street can return to pre-war highs, that might suggest the market’s moved on.
Oil prices have urged the RBA to hike rates again, undoing last year’s cuts, which somehow isn’t the biggest scandal in the room now, which might start to matter more down under than what’s going on in the Middle East – unless we start fuel rationing, of course. Talk about a gift for the opposition.
Anyway, it’s pretty much the same as yesterday. Let’s dive into company-specific news. Lithium die-hards are likely over the moon on Wednesday as former darling Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) announced it’s restarting production at its Finniss mine in a new partnership with Glencore; the company is also conducting a capital raise after inking a positive Final Investment Decision.
Tetratherix (ASX:TTX) meanwhile sank nearly -20% Wednesday, though on less than $500K of share turnover, as hype generated by the company’s early week announcement it would be moving into nasal delivery Ozempic-style drugs appeared to cool off.
Finally, more pain for ARN Media (ASX:A1N) shareholders, though there can’t be much retail left. The company has officially axed its contract with controversial radio figure Kyle Sandilands, who today held a presser in his driveway to say he’ll sue ARN for breaching a 10-year contract after one year.
Any massive payout there could legitimately kill the company; shares were down -1.5% – after someone appeared to withdraw a paltry $1K from the pool.
That’s The ASX Today for Wednesday, I’m Jon Davidson, have a splendid evening.
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