Market Close: Aussie bond yields jump as RBA cut clearly far off; gold hype cools lithium stocks

Good Afternoon and welcome to Market Close for Tuesday 2^nd of December, I’m Jon Davidson. The local share market spent most of the day flattish green, heading into the second half of afternoon trades the bourse was up less than two tenths of a percent. 

Zooming out, the XJO remains rangebound within the 8,500pts mark, the market hasn’t returned to 9,000pts since late October. So far, it still looks like the prospect of a Santa Rally down under remains far off. The real catalyst here, above all else, still appears to have been that hotter than expected CPI read from the ABS in what now feels like ancient history, but wasn’t much more than a month ago. 

On that note, Australian bond yields hit nearly year-long highs as it looks like the RBA cash rate won’t be coming down anytime soon, and while gold churned around US$4,220 an ounce; silver prices sold off more steeply, though, they remain nearly 20% higher month on month. 

Energy and materials led the gainers on Tuesday and perhaps surprisingly real estate was also in the top 3; though that was driven by the likes of Goodman Group. IT led laggards tracking Wall Street overnight. 

Turning to companies in the green, 

African Gold soared on Tuesday as it announced it’s being bought out by major TX-listed shareholder Montage Gold; that news actually dropped yesterday but the Monday ASX announcement outage effectively delayed market reaction. 

Meanwhile, cold weld spray tech specialists Titomic jumped 15% as it reported that its cold spray additive was able to keep a thrust rocket together during a full-blown test using jet fuel. 

Finally, Tungsten Mining jumped after it inked a new exploration target on Monday and, in the background, it’s starting to look like tungsten is quietly becoming a vogue critical mineral for companies to possess.

And so what about the reds? 

Zip Co fell nearly -10% intraday after a weak Wall Street session overnight and what has been a fairly good run for the COVID-era darling in recent months, suggesting a mix of profit taking and repostioning. 

Core Lithium fell meanwhile on Tuesday in line with other stocks like Pilbara Minerals as recent excitement stemming from upside on lithium benchmarks appears to have been subsumed by higher prices for gold.

Finally,  Star Entertainment Group fell nearly -7% to 10 cents per share; that came after changes to the board were flagged on Monday, even despite Bally’s directors being installed which was at one point viewed as a saving deal for the casino. 

That’s Market Close for Tuesday, I’m Jon Davidson, have a great night and we’ll see you on Wednesday.