Delivered to you by BULLS N’ BEARS
Andrew Todd
One other week of smoke and mirrors has left markets typically sitting fairly to finish the week.
The ASX slid just a little on Friday, largely on retreating copper and aluminium costs because the world’s largest miner BHP shed practically 4 per cent.
Nevertheless, US markets have been pushing new all-time highs on “nothing to see right here” US inflation information, taking some warmth out of the interest-rate hawks.
The largest winner of the week was Japan, with its Nikkei having fun with a powerful run as buyers digested the prospect of additional US assist for the beleaguered yen. Behind these inexperienced numbers sits a slightly fascinating piece of monetary theatre. Whereas the Yen has been collapsing in the direction of 40-year lows and threatening to make Japan’s already monumental pile of US Treasuries more and more uncomfortable, it was the US to the rescue after {a photograph} of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s notepad at a Cupboard assembly revealed a slightly extraordinary merchandise on his to-do record: “Purchase Japanese Yen $5 to $10 billion.”
The US subsequently coordinated with Japan to assist the forex, with Trump cheerfully explaining that Japan “needed just a little little bit of assist” and the cash printing American machine was there to offer it – how charitable.
The US had two excellent causes to assist.
A completely collapsing yen makes Japanese exports cheaper and US items dearer, widening America’s commerce deficit and extra importantly, Japan is likely one of the world’s largest holders of US authorities debt.
If Tokyo wanted to promote a mountain of Treasuries to defend the yen, it may ship US bond costs decrease, yields greater and American rates of interest by the roof.
In different phrases, Washington wasn’t essentially rescuing Japan. It was defending its self-interests.
The yen bailout additionally gave gold a recent kick. Usually gold and oil don’t celebration collectively, however each have been rising as buyers query the power of the US greenback and the soundness of the worldwide monetary system. Renewed Chinese language shopping for has added extra gasoline to gold, whereas America’s determination to assist prop up the yen has solely highlighted how fragile the world’s forex and debt structure has turn into.
Again dwelling in Australia and our inflation maestros – the Labor authorities – have once more been recklessly spending your hard-earned money.
Albanese put his cape on to announce a $2.5 billion taxpayer-funded rescue bundle for Rio Tinto’s Tomago aluminium smelter which is struggling beneath surging electrical energy costs. The faux herioics have been trying decidedly smoke screenish because the Japanese “melongate” saga threatened to swallow him complete.
Bailouts apart it was a promising week for the Bulls N’ Bears Runners cavalcade, because the small caps index continued to surge and junior sources have been the largest beneficiaries. It was four-from-four for sources on the record this week, with some curious buying and selling humorous buggers slightly than substance creating a transparent winner.
ACCENT RESOURCES NL (ASX: ACS)
Up 5233% (1.2c – 64c)
The Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week and now a critical contender for Runner of the Yr is the extraordinary case of Accent Assets.
Whereas the corporate did launch an replace on impartial beneficiation check work at its wholly-owned Magnetite Vary undertaking in Western Australia, the following surge in its share worth had little to do with the announcement and all the things to do with how a lot speculative warmth may very well be pumped right into a inventory with a ridiculously tight share register.
Sure, the corporate is progressing a pre-feasibility examine to evaluate the standard of its iron ore. And sure, its newest coarse dry magnetic separation work managed to reject practically half of the undesirable materials whereas sustaining magnetic iron recoveries above 97 per cent. Nevertheless, the 97 per cent determine, whereas showing vital, was shortly overshadowed by one other quantity that captured the market’s creativeness: 98.5.
That determine, 98.5 per cent, is the portion of the corporate held by the highest 20 shareholders. This type of tightly held inventory is the stuff of day-traders moist desires and what ensued within the days following its announcement can solely be labeled as pure insanity.
On Monday’s announcement, the corporate noticed a grand whole of simply $140 price of its shares traded. By Tuesday, the humorous buggers of the day-trading world has weighed in, pushing the share worth up 50 per cent to 1.8c then onto an astronomical intraday run, hovering 614 per cent with solely $14,000 in shares altering arms.
The market overlords on the ASX have been fast to blow their whistles, slapping Accent with a dashing violation and inserting it in a buying and selling halt pending a response to a worth question. On Tuesday evening, Accent responded that it was unaware of any unannounced info however did word the information from Monday.
That was simply the warm-up nevertheless, Wednesday morning noticed the inventory proceed on its ballistic trajectory and by 11am on Thursday, Accent’s share worth had peaked at 64c, representing a colossal 5233 per cent achieve for the week. It was promptly positioned into one other buying and selling halt pending a response to the query on everybody’s lips: “What the hell is occurring?“.
Certainly by now the hard-working women and men on the ASX would recall their complications with final yr’s Runner of the Yr, Kaili Assets, which similarly surged 39,650 per cent in simply two days of buying and selling by itself tight register.
But as soon as once more, there was no stopping the Accent bandwagon. The corporate’s market capitalisation of simply $5.8 million final week was trying greater than just a bit pale in opposition to its ultimate market cap of s$313 million by the point it hit 64c on Thursday. What’s even crazier is that solely about $540,000 price of inventory had been traded since Monday morning to create the monumental uplift in worth.
It was definitely nice information for its 64 per cent shareholder, the aptly named Wealthy Mark Improvement Group, who at one level was sitting on a paper achieve of practically $200 million. It’s one other wild lesson proving {that a} tight construction, a little bit of scorching air and some hundred thousand {dollars} within the arms of merchants can create market occasions that make Wall Road’s meme shares look tame.
LIBERTY METALS LTD (ASX: LIB)
Up 100% (0.2c – 0.4c)
Snagging silver for the week is junior gold explorer Liberty Metals, after it unveiled a binding four-year choice to accumulate 90 per cent of its Oko North and Oko South gold tasks in Guyana, South America.
At face worth this analyst might need guessed that being in Guyana would land you someplace in West Africa slightly than South America, however when it comes to gold geology, that’s not such a far-fetched equation. The corporate says its Guyana gold tenure inside the Guiana Defend of Brazil-Guyana-Venezuela was as soon as adjoined to West Africa’s prolific Birimian Defend, which extends by Ghana and hosts most of West Africa’s world-class gold deposits.
Guyana’s Cuyuni Mining District sits contained in the Guiana Defend, the identical geological belt that hosts Newmont’s Merian mine in Suriname and Zijin’s Aurora mine simply down the street. It’s a jurisdiction that has quietly turn into one of many extra attention-grabbing unknown gold addresses on the planet.
The Oko area particularly has drawn critical consideration over the previous few years, with the $14.5 billion Canadian-listed G Mining Ventures advancing the Oko West undertaking towards first gold.
Extra importantly, Liberty’s Oko North undertaking straight abuts floor held by G Mining, which is in comfortably near G Mining’s New Oko Discovery. That discovery has returned thick gold hits together with a whopping 60m working a useful 5.9 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and even 100m at 2.2 g/t gold.
G Mining’s feasibility examine outlined sources of effectively over 10 million ounces, supporting a mean manufacturing profile of a monstrous 350,000 ounces each year over a 12.3-year mine life, representing a monster undertaking. Notably, Liberty’s floor sits proper in the identical neighbourhood, which is why its 180-square-kilometre footprint carries actual weight even earlier than a single drill gap is contemplated.
On the lookout for gold the place monster deposits have been discovered earlier than is all the time begin, with Liberty now set to finish a maiden systematic geochemical sampling program to outline drill targets, which is deliberate to begin within the third quarter of 2026.
On account of the acquisition, the corporate additionally accomplished a placement to boost $5 million to a cornerstone group of institutional buyers at 1 / 4 of a cent, including loads of paper to the corporate that already has 8.2b shares on concern.
KING RIVER RESOURCES LTD (ASX: KRR)
Up 75% (6c – 10.5c)
Taking out the ultimate podium spot this week is a WA gold explorer that has been on an absolute tear of late. Buoyed by its substantial shareholding in Tivan Restricted, valued at greater than $26 million, the corporate has surged over 300 per cent in current months on the again of exploration at its Mindoolah gold undertaking within the Murchison, the place early-stage useful resource definition is heating up.
Its share worth was as soon as once more set alight this week after a high-resolution magnetic drone survey lit up a seize bag of recent high-priority gold targets at Mindoolah, unveiling a sequence of beforehand unrecognised structural corridors and alteration zones. The corporate says the survey outcomes level to a a lot bigger, structurally managed gold system than beforehand thought, extending effectively past the undertaking’s historic mine workings within the extremely potential Murchison province.
The Tony Barton backed Perth-based explorer has now outlined 4 precedence targets for follow-up work based mostly on interpreted hydrothermal alteration, advanced fold-shear interactions and structural repetitions. These interpretations have been largely led by King River’s comparatively new Managing Director Graham Gadsby who seems to be capturing the lights out at King River. The corporate’s share has been on a glory run from 1.6c on October 14th final yr when he was appointed, to nearer to 10c now with loads of motion within the final week.
King River solely acquired the Mindoolah undertaking, positioned about 70km north-west of Cue, in February this yr and has wasted no time in making use of trendy exploration methods.
The undertaking is suffering from underground workings courting again to the early 1900s. Within the a long time that adopted, shallow open pits delivered high-grade outcomes with manufacturing averaging as much as 19g/t.
A lot of the previous mining was constrained by the water desk, with shallow mining depths down to simply 20 metres and the upper financial cut-off grades of the day have probably left lots on the desk for a contemporary explorer.
The corporate now expects its maiden Mindoolah assays in mid-September, whereas trendy geophysics is lighting up recent targets throughout its Murchison floor. These previous Mindoolah workings may very well be nothing greater than the tip of a a lot greater gold iceberg for this now $125 million market capped gold story.
AUSTRALIAN MINES LTD (ASX: AUZ)
Up 71% (2.45c – 4.2c)
Rounding out the Bulls N’ Bears Runners this week is burgeoning scandium junior Australian Mines, which surged as US curiosity in Australian scandium, particularly in New South Wales, put the sector effectively and actually again in the marketplace’s radar.
The catalyst was the Pentagon’s US$400 million (A$566 million) mortgage to Dawn Vitality Metals to assist develop its close by Syerston scandium undertaking in NSW. The US bypassed any Australian funding hopes in what’s a critical vote of confidence within the strategic significance of the steel and the Australian provide chain.
The US intervention inevitably shined a brighter gentle on Australian Mines’ Flemington undertaking, which sits proper subsequent door to Syerston and hosts a 6.3 million tonne useful resource grading 446 elements per million (ppm) scandium, with about 98 per cent already sitting within the high-confidence measured and indicated classes.
With round 90 per cent of the useful resource additionally sitting inside 50 metres of floor, Flemington has the potential for comparatively shallow, free-dig mining in an space which has been seared onto the worldwide scandium map.
Scandium is a crucial steel used to make aerospace and defence alloys lighter and stronger, whereas additionally discovering purposes in superior electronics and semiconductors. With Washington more and more determined to safe crucial mineral provide chains outdoors China, Australian tasks are evidently the following port of name.
Australian Mines is now progressing a pre-feasibility examine scaling up Flemington, giving buyers lots to chew on because the US throws critical cash on the scandium trade subsequent door. When the Pentagon begins placing a whole lot of hundreds of thousands into your neighbour’s yard, it tends to make make the market meerkats sit upright and with a hefty 71 per cent run for the week they clearly have their eye skilled on Australian Mines.
Is your ASX-listed firm doing one thing attention-grabbing? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
