Week 34 Wrap: Did you know BRICS had a summit?; Wall Street earnings solid & HotCopper's picks

Week 34 Wrap: Did you know BRICS had a summit?; Wall Street earnings solid & HotCopper’s picks

Jonathon Davidson
jonathon.davidson@themarketonline.com.au

25 October 2024 14:08 (AEDT)

Welcome to the end of another week – there’s nine left in the year! I’m not going to start off talking about WiseTech (ASX:WTC) and its apparent Casanova founder, nor am I going to start off talking about Wall Street, and nor am I going to talk about America’s proposed G7-wide ban on Russian titanium which, interestingly, hasn’t moved titanium prices. (Yet?) Let’s talk about BRICS.

In case you missed it, yes, BRICS had a summit this week. While ABC TV covered the annual shindig on Friday, it’s been on pretty much all week, and it’s been surprisingly absent from a lot of finance-minded Western media coverage.

With geopolitics otherwise remaining more or less stagnant in the last few weeks – the war in Ukraine is increasingly one of attrition; the Middle East remains as chaotically tragic as ever – there were a few events at BRICS 2024 that will likely inform how 2025 shapes up.

China, Russia & India

First and foremost is that Chinese President Xi and Russian President Putin re-affirmed their allyship this week, despite some recent public discord between the two nations around the war in Ukraine (and despite, even, calls for peace aired at BRICS).

Russia has recently enlisted North Korean troops to fight; while the mainstream media occupies itself with whether or not that’s true, there’s been images of North Korean flags planted in Ukrainian territory on the internet all week. (Given Russia has been recruiting soldiers from Nepal, of all places, I’m confident it’s true.)

But perhaps more eyebrow raising is that China’s Xi and India’s Modi have agreed to simmer down trade tensions. That’s big news – hark your mind back to 2020 when at least twenty Indian border guard troops were killed by Chinese troops wielding melee weapons.

While it’s too early to tell what the implications of renewed ties between China and India might be for Australia, and before asking how legitimate that friendly atmosphere might be, right off the bat, it’s worth noting Australia has recently devised strategic moves to align itself closer to India – with the view of watering down reliance on the world’s second largest economy.

So, if we want to turn to India to limit our reliance on China – but now India and China appear set to rejuvenate happier trade relationships – what does that mean for the validity of our ‘India strategy?’ It was only May last year where Modi came down under to visit Sydney and was received with a rockstar’s welcome.

Then again: Can we really expect China and India to shrug off hotly felt historical rivalry? After all, governments are quite good at saying one thing publicly then doing another behind closed doors.

But that’s enough of BRICS.

HotCopper; Wall Street & Titanium

On HotCopper, users were watching Droneshield’s quarterly on Friday; throughout the week former battery metal darling Core Lithium shot up as its latest positively received gold drill hits attracted all attention, and, Strike Energy stole the spotlight – once again – as it reported the “best ever” results from the Perth Basin for gas flows.

Let’s speedrun through everything else: Wall Street earnings have been mixed but net positive; Tesla’s surprise profit boost helped to turn around sentiment midweek. Aussie consumer confidence has hit its highest level since early 2023, but the IMF sees inflation above 3% in late 2025 – per the RBA’s own assessments. I can’t help but think housing is the cause of that.

The Pharmacy Guild wants the Sigma-Chemist Warehouse reverse listing scrapped; Wisetech’s CEO has quit to the joy of shareholders. Chinese stimulus appears to be having an effect with some HK property developers noting stronger sales, but, it’s too early to really tell what’s fundamental improvement and what’s strategic.

Japan’s Tokyo Metro listed publicly, its biggest IPO in six years, and on gold markets, we saw a pullback in the yellow metal this week as Bloomberg data suggests the metal is irrationally overpriced.

And don’t forget to keep an eye on titanium prices. If this year has been any guide, the market is sleeping on the next big shortage thematic. I’ll be talking more about that next week.