Good Afternoon and welcome to HotCopper’s Market Close for Thursday of Week 3 of the year, I’m Jon Davidson. Are we in a commodities supercycle? It’s starting to feel that way.
Since gold shot out of the inky black at escape velocity in recent history, it’s apparently dragging everything else along with it. Neodymium’s up 15% month-on-month, silver 40% – so anything tied to silver like indium is also going nicely – iron ore’s having a good jog, even tin is up 3% or so, then there’s copper.
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On the back of all that, BHP is eyeing $50 a share, and its more or less at parity with Commonwealth Bank right now if you squint. We live in a mining export economy and we also love houses, so it’s not really that surprising really BHP and Commonwealth continue to act as our Mag2. Water is wet. But it is a good indication that 2026 is going to be a good year for materials, as the critical minerals thematic matures into a structural reality.
And that’s a good thing for the ASX200, which looks like it could be on its way back to 8,900pts – in October last year we hit all time highs above 9,000 before a hotter than expected CPI read tanked vibes. But we’re past that now, it seems – which is a good thing and a bad thing, because it suggests future hotter than expected inflation reads could be dangerous. But with metals doing what they’re doing, right now, a lot of happy traders down under.
Looking at sectors, can you guess who was in front? Materials! It was materials. Again, mining country, not that surprising. IT leading laggards down -2% in arvo trades, a fresh spurt of AI doubts settling into that sector.
Let’s turn to companies in the green.
Sunrise Energy Metals once again popping intraday on the back of the materials strength, up another 9% part of the great materials rally.
Peninsula Energy meanwhile back to 80c for the first time in a long time with shareholders doubtless happy uranium upside’s translating into the stock price.
Bluescope Steel meanwhile travelling above $31 a share on Thursday as the market continues to digest the proposed takeover from Seven Group Holdings and friends and no doubt steel prices are factoring into some investors’ thinking too.
And so what about the reds?
Amaero Limited down over -15% on Thursday after revenue expectations came in lower than what the market was expecting; full disclosure, Amaero’s a client of HotCopper and I suspect we’ll be hearing more from the company in the coming weeks and months.
Chalice Mining meanwhile not a beneficiary of the metals rally, at least not today, shares were down -6% in arvo trades.
Finally, Andean Silver another victim of being overlooked, shares down -6% to $2.35 a share, presumably a mix of profit taking and re-allocation.
That’s Market Close for Thursday, I’m Jon Davidson, have an ebullient evening and we’ll see you on Friday.