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Good Afternoon and welcome to the latest edition of HotCopper Highlights where we go through the stocks and announcements you were watching this week on Australia’s #1 finance website, I’m Jon Davidson, let’s get into it starting with the most viewed.
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The bell tolled for forum favourite Zip Co this week after the company released a fairly positive earnings report, but one which crucially fell short of analyst expectations, so the stock was punished. That’s not unusual, but the share price sold off down more than 40%.
It’s not like Zip’s going bankrupt. What might have scared some is that the company’s actually got more going on in the US than Aus right now, but the US has already got a lot of BNPL competition. Then there’s the fact US BNPL stock Klarna, which IPO’d last year, is down -60% since.
Elsewhere, while not necessarily an announcement from Coles rather than from the Australian competition regulator, the duopoly giant was taken to court this week for, according to the regulator, fraudulently offering discounts on products that weren’t actually discounts at all. While much has been made of the lawsuit, Coles share price hardly moved, suggesting investors expect a slap on the wrist.
And it wouldn’t be HotCopper if Pilbara Minerals, now called PLS Group, didn’t register on the radar. Its earnings report came out this week, but it was a fairly quiet affair all round, perhaps because the company still isn’t paying a dividend again. There’s also the observation that lithium benchmarks have fallen off their January highs, which is translating into more love for gold, copper, and silver.
And what about the most discussed?
JB Hi-Fi’s earnings came in this week too and the company paid out a fat dividend which is always something that’s going to win favour; not hurting at all is that the Australian consumer remains impervious to economic headwinds – while discounts and November sales drew crowds, it looks like Aussies are still buying TVs and computers.
Gold darling Gorilla Gold Mines also made the boards this week after appearing at the 2026 RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle, WA, with over 150 companies attending and, thanks to higher gold prices, an undeniable improvement in mood compared to the last few years. It’s not often I’d say that a mining conference had good vibes, but, here we are.
Finally, Aussie giant BHP released earnings, and there were two big things that stood out to me. Firstly, the company made more money off copper than it did iron ore in the first half, which is the first time that’s happened and evidence a pivot towards the ‘copper megatrend’ was a good move.
But BHP also sees Chinese iron ore demand levelling out in the next three years – which has massive implications for the Australian economy, and, BHP itself. For now, it looks like it’s banking on India being its new bestie.
That’s HotCopper Highlights for Week 8 of 2026, I’m Jon Davidson, have a fantastic weekend and we’ll see you on Monday.
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