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Greetings and welcome to The ASX Today for Thursday of Week 6, I’m Jon Davidson. Another day of uncertainty on precious metals markets predominantly keeping the ASX red, at the time of recording, gold back down below the $5,000 an ounce US mark and silver hovering below $90 an ounce U.S.

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Copper, too, retreating from its flirtation with all-time-highs on Wednesday; it looks like the new Fed pick is a point of digestion. The overnight U.S. critmins summit, which saw our own Resources Minister attend, doesn’t appear to have done much. Even after Vice President Vance used the magic words “price floor” again.

We’ve got ongoing tech concerns in the U.S., too, with software stocks on Wall Street selling off basically because the AI trade is turning into a bit of an ouroboros, and we got slammed by that yesterday. It’s worth exploring why.

There’s an ongoing belief that AI will change the world, at some point, when it’s more than just chatbots, but people are betting big money on that.

Stocks like Salesforce (listed in the U.S.) have been falling because there’s a view that eventually AI will replace human workers, meaning there’ll be less money for Salesforce when fewer companies are buying subscriptions. I think we’re seeing the tech trade start to cannibalise itself. Interesting times.

Looking at home, we saw recovery in some of those stocks, NUIX (ASX:NXL) jumped slightly after yesterday’s sell-off, Xero (ASX:XRO) too, but WiseTech (ASX:WTC) still red. Looking at sectors, Materials the worst off for the day, -2.7% in arvo trades; discretionary stocks the best up over +1%, note that might change by close.

As for news moving Oz markets; uranium miners are under more pressure with Paladin Energy (ASX:PDN) falling nearly -8% in the afternoon to $12.50 a share as news that Kazakhstani uranium producer Kazatomprom will be increasing production this year rattled the ever-fickle uranium market.

Kerry Stokes-backed Beach Energy (ASX:BPT) fell on Thursday as its half year results failed to impress but one year returns are still up 40%, and finally, JB Hi FI (ASX:JBH) has launched an in-store radio channel similar to those owned by Coles and Bunnings, made by the same mob, which means you can now look forward to hearing more ads while you shop for a new TV on which you can watch advertisements.

That’s The ASX Today for Thursdsay, I’m Jon Davidson, have a thoroughbred evening.

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