Greetings and welcome to HotCopper’s the ASX Today for Monday of Week 22, I’m Jonathon Davidson, and while the ASX eventually reacted positively to the Donald Trump-Iran peace talk headlines around lunchtime, the market Down Under had a hard time staying above 8,700 points intraday.
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By the time the ASX got trading, President Trump had already told the international press there’s, quote, no rush around peace talks, and that created yet more uncertainty around this latest batch of peace talks – we’ve been hearing about peace talks since late March, and at least one diplomatic meeting in April fell apart in shambles – but the market was happy for some good news.
Most catalysing on Monday is that oil fell more than -5% overnight, and Brent’s gone below $100 a barrel USD. Gold jumped, bringing silver and copper up with it; iron ore’s still more than $106 a tonne in Singapore, and looking around Asia, the NIKKEI continues to hit fresh records while Singapore is also at all-time highs.
But Australia remains a laggard, both because we’re heavily exposed to fuel price volatility, and we haven’t got any AI plays. Except for BHP, of course, if you listen to Morgan Stanley, which today climbed back over $60 a share, unlike its counterpart giant, Commonwealth Bank, which has stayed flat on Monday.
Wall Street Weekend futures and futures on Monday are looking more positive with another green night tipped for the states so if that holds Tuesday will likely follow down under, so long as Trump doesn’t make it too obvious the peace memorandum between the US and Iran remains highly unstable. At the time of writing the US 10Y bond yield remains stuck between 4.5% and 4.6%.
Looking around the traps for Monday, Qantas and Virgin were big winners of the dip in oil prices. Both stocks jumped more than +5% intraday, helping to lift shocking YTD performance due to jet fuel costs. Air New Zealand was flat as its suspension of FY26 guidance acts as a curse on the stock. Woodside and Santos predictably fell.
Elsewhere, there are signs the hydrogen thematic is coming back online and at least one ASX-listed ETF, the Global X Hydrogen ETF, climbed today, adding to its nearly +200% YoY return as AI data centre energy demand concerns put Andrew Forrest’s favourite fuel alternative back in the spotlight after a few dormant years.
Finally, Australian coal stocks Whitehaven and Coronado had a solid Monday after for mixed reasons; while the latter today divested one big asset, over the weekend coal prices in China have climbed following an explosion at a mine that produces around one million tonnes a year, and there are also emerging reports of more coal plants being brought online ahead of planned phase-outs.
That’s the ASX Today for Monday of Week 22, I’m Jon Davidson, have a great night.
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