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Greetings and welcome to HotCopper’s The ASX Today for Monday, Week 13, I’m Isaac McIntyre – replacing Jonathon Davidson all through this week as he enjoys a few days back home in sunny Darwin, and what a week it could be as I temporarily pull double-duty on Market Open coverage and the ASX Today.
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The whole big mover and shaker early this week has been Donald Trump’s imposing ultimatum levelled against Tehran, where he said he would “obliterate” Iran should it refuse to reopen the Strait of Hormuz soon.
Doesn’t quite sound like the wind-down he promised on Saturday, and traders agreed, with many now looking for ways to get their cash to safety.
Queue the drop, which has left our ASX benchmark nearly 10% weaker than its March 2 peak, and $320B below where it was pre-war. That 10% mark is crucial – that’s when a technical correction is formally triggered.
All eyes will be firmly, strongly, tightly glued to Trump’s 48-hour deadline, which comes on Monday evening in New York. Should Trump lean “TACO,” things may cool off a little, but should he hit the ‘go’ button on further U.S.-Israeli attacks, especially against energy infrastructure, the hurt will roll on.
Under all this, too, the once surging gold has sagged to under $4,400 an ounce to the U.S. dollar, in what has been its steepest slide since 1983. Hmm.
(VanEck Investments today said that leaves gold in a “buy window,” though that may only be for the bravest bulls among us this month.)
Now, let’s turn to ASX stocks. Miners continue to be the biggest losers from this whole conflict in the Middle East, with gold explorers and producers like Catalyst Metals (ASX:CYL) and Ora Banda Mining (ASX:OBM) both giving away over 10% market cap. So too Northern Star (ASX:NST), down nearly -7% intraday.
Energy went the other way – which would be no surprise to anyone – as one of the only flat sectors. Ampol (ASX:ALD), Santos (ASX:STO), and Viva Energy (ASX:VEA) were all in the green, while Woodside (ASX:WDS) dropped slightly.
Also in the green pool was Amplia Therapeutics (ASX:ATX), which defied general market sentiments to surge +82% today. I covered that at length in my HotCopper Trends column, if you want to hear more about that one.
Finally, our Big 4 banks joined the bourse rout (or perhaps contributed to it) with NAB (ASX:NAB) the worst, down -1.8%. CBA (ASX:CBA) lost -0.6%.
That’s The ASX Today for Monday. I’m Isaac McIntyre, see you in the morning.
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