Good Afternoon and welcome to Market Close for Monday of Week 50, I’m Jon Davidson. We get the RBA rate call tomorrow and I’m not going to bother talking about prediction markets because it’s clear on a vibes-based analysis we’re looking at another pause.
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Worst case scenario, we get a shock hike. Many analysts foresee a hike in 2026, but if we were to get one tomorrow that would indicate a far more panicky central bank. But it’s more likely than not going to be a pause.
Where we could see a rate cut this month is in the US, which means the ASX might be able to eke back some chutzpah, but even then, I think American exceptionalism has clearly come back on the menu after this year’s earlier April 2 shambles.
All in all, the big money’s in Wall Street, as ever. Looking locally, telecoms in the lead today, nearly all other sectors red. Let’s examine that right now as we turn to companies in the green.
The telco sector led the market on Monday because Telstra shares jumped nearly +1.5% intraday, bringing 1Y returns for the $56 billion dollar market cap company to nearly +25% over the last twelve months.
Liontown up again on Monday jumping over +11% on no news but clearly as a recent lithium revival proves to have legs; it looks like the market is favouring stocks that have already shown production potential, with less money going into riskier juniors. Perhaps an alarming indicator of sentiment, given Australians love speccies.
Finally, Wildcat Resources up along with other gold stocks on the top gainer boards as the price of gold continues to sit at US$4,200 an ounce, having pared off recent downside which kicked off with the Trump-Xi talks.
And so what about the reds?
Chalice Mining declined on Monday as the company released a prefeas study for its Gonneville palladium-copper-nickel project, even with copper prices at record highs, the overall sour mood for materials apparently spread into its investors’ psychology.
Elsewhere, SILEX Systems pared off recent gains, down over 8% heading into the final hour of trades after earlier this year rocketing when its laser-based uranium refining tech was proven to meet US government standards.
Finally, Lynas Rare Earths down over -5% on Monday confirming a general sour vibe for materials broadly, that sell-off came with no real catalyst in the rare earths space or the company’s fundamentals but does follow reports last week China has begun getting ready to resume rare earth exports. Keyword maybe.
That’s Market Close, I’m Jon Davidson, have a fantastic evening and we’ll see you on Tuesday.