Market Close: Trump gives the ASX a boost, again, but caution wise

Good Afternoon and welcome to HotCopper’s Market Close for Tuesday 13th of May, I’m Jon Davidson.

Trump’s latest policy reversal saw the leader of the free world give the ASX a boost, once again. Right after the Australian market closed on Monday, we heard that Trump would introduce a 90 day reprieve for China on tariffs. The market’s done what you’d expect in return.

At any rate, let’s turn back to Australia and look at companies in the green. 

Jupiter Mines was the top gainer on Tuesday up 31% at market close hitting around 19cps as the company’s stake in a Manganese project was boosted as other players in that project sold their stake for nearly $160M Australian. Worth watching is that the company issued a trading halt in the final minutes of trade.

Elsewhere, Clarity Pharmaceuticals jumped nearly 17% at close to around $2.60 a share as the company saw State Street snatch up just over a 5% shareholding in the stock. This has likely relieved some investors who sold off on Monday following Trump’s call to cut US drug prices.

Looking at companies in the red, 

Bellevue Gold fell nearly -8% to around 88 cents per share at close as the safe haven yellow metal takes a dip following news the US-China trade war might be more of a trade wasn’t, though, that remains to be seen. At any rate, commodity-linked stocks are always exposed to risk, and here we’re seeing that play out.

Elsewhere, Droneshield fell over 6.5% on Tuesday to around $1.32 cents at close as talk of peace deals between Ukraine and Russia may have hurt sentiment around the provision of counter-drone technology broadly. Probably not helping matters for the war stock is that it looks like India and Pakistan might not start WW3.

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