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Good Afternoon and welcome to HotCopper’s Market Close for Thursday, I’m Jon Davidson. We were in the green today at least, though heading into the final hour, it looked like that could even be up for debate. Seeing as we’re filming this before market close, who knows where it could end up.
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We’re still down below 9,000 points again after the whiplash effects of the last two weeks of geopolitical macro, what with the US-Australia meeting, the Australia-Asia meeting, the US-Asia meeting, the Trump-Xi meeting, and so on. Then the fact Australian inflation is on the way back up is its own thing. Worth noting gold is flirting with $4000 an ounce again this arvo, too.
That means the only certainty right now is uncertainty, and that’s probably why Commonwealth’s market cap is creeping back towards $300B as investors look for the safest place to put money in Australia’s share market. That said, materials was well in the lead on Thursday, up 1.6% heading into the final hour, and financials led the laggards – but most sectors were really just flat.
Let’s look at some companies in the green.
Lights and Wonder soared on Thursday after reporting earnings in the US where it’s listed on the NASDAQ, though not for long, it’s coming down under and delisting from the US next week, in a move you could call curious.
Core Lithium meanwhile churned upwards once again as a recent surge of liquidity has attracted swing traders back to that stock, but right now, the lithium market hasn’t really changed too much.
Finally, in a similar vein, Meeka Metals buoyed by an at least partially green day and the fact of gold’s staggered return to $4000.
And so what about the reds?
James Hardie was de-indexed on Wall Street overnight and so Australian shares sunk right out the gate on Thursday with the company issuing a trading pause after less than half an hour, it says it has an update for the ASX, the question is, what?
Elsewhere, more pain for Neuren Pharma as sales of its drug DAYBUE which is intended for children with a rare condition sunk once again, the company ultimately relies on high US drug prices to underpin its revenue.
Finally, more pain for G8 Education after the embattled childcare centre operator downgraded guidance this week and found a way not to talk about the elephant in the room, which mightn’t be the right strat, here, given that hasn’t really worked since July.
That’s Market Close for Thursday, I’m Jon Davidson, have a great night and we’ll see you tomorrow.
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