Good Afternoon and welcome to Market Close for Thursday 16th of October, I’m Jon Davidson. I noted yesterday that even under 9,000pts, the XJO remains up 10% YTD.
Today we climbed past the 9,000 level once again on the back of a ripper day for the real estate sector after weak jobs data led some investors to bet that an RBA rate cut in November is locked in, that’s anybody’s guess but one should note we’ve had three this year so far.
Then again, the RBA’s mouthpiece spoke of stronger than expected inflation yesterday, too, so you add those things up and you can see the bull case. Possibly helping matters is that a $70B deal in the private data centre sector inked this week might also be fuelling hopes, which may explain why Goodman Group jumped over 3%.
Heading into close, US futures are flattish red in the States, and it’s unclear whether today’s boost of optimism will carry through into Friday or recede in an end of week fade.
What is clear is that traders eyeing headlines from China earlier this week that spurred a fresh pouring into rare earth stocks were definitely putting faith in the three day rule. Many of those companies that this week saw meteoric gains pulled back on Thursday, probably because people wanted some play money for the weekend.
Let’s turn to companies in the green.
Meeka Metals popped today after it declared that it produced more gold than expected in the September quarter, and, that it’s hit gold whilst drilling at a previously untapped part of its flagship acreage.
Bougainville Copper meanwhile stole top gainer status from Meeka as momentum following Wednesday’s quarterly production update continued for a second day in a row, last month, the company learned a lawsuit straddling its project could be bucked off.
Still in copper, FireFly Metals also made the top gainers board on the back of well-received copper drill hit which also contained gold on-site its copper-gold project in Canada.
And so what of the reds?
American Rare Earths tumbled on Thursday as momentum from the latest critical mineral scare from China wore out and traders cashed in, but you can expect this topic to remain vogue. Let’s hope it’s for the right reasons.
Iluka Resources in a similar boat as that stock pulled back but unlike the previously mentioned company, given Iluka actually produces, the pullback wasn’t nearly as dramatic.
Finally, if you wanted another piece of evidence that thematic-exposed juniors may have suffered from a lack of hype today, just look at Dateline Resources which also fell back, just more volatility for a stock blessed and cursed by being named by Trump in a tweet earlier this year.
That’s Market Close, I’m Jon Davidson, have a great night and we’ll see you tomorrow.