The bulls are back in town, who would have thought?
Less than four weeks till Santa and it looks like the fat man is already stuffing the market’s stockings. A little over a week from every man and his dog predicting no rate cut till the new year, the market oracles have changed their minds yet again.
One minute the United States treasury has rates on hold forever, the next minute a December cut is baked in at over 90 per cent.
Last week’s bloodbath feels like ancient history as the S&P500 flirts with the prospects of the magical 7000-point mark and the AI bubble is beginning to look more like an impenetrable shotput. Even market doomsayers are struggling to find a scape goat for a reversal as Thanksgiving and Christmas look like they might become one extended holiday.
Precious metals have had a healthy bounce. Off all-time highs of $6700 an ounce, gold has consolidated nicely and looks to be on its next move north as Deutsche bank calls for $8300 by as soon as next year.
Gold’s less well off cousin, Silver, has been on an even bigger tear. As inventories dry up the alternative precious metal is pushing all-time highs as it moves out of the yellow metal’s shadow and into the limelight.
Back with the market darling though and critical mineral tungsten has quietly taken the reins, doubling from $500 per tonne a few months ago to more than $1050 this week. A fact not lost on major players EQ Resources and Tungsten Mining, both of which have doubled and then some in recent weeks.
In a bit of a reality check to Australian markets the Chinese equivalent to Nvidia — Moore Threads — has pulled off the most over-subscribed IPO in living memory. Raising a casual $1.7 billion for its IPO wasn’t going to be a problem after the book was 4126 times covered for a staggering $6.32 trillion dollars in potential capital. More than double the total size of the ASX if you don’t mind.
Just as everyone was certain the end was nigh last week, they are locked in now for a big finish to 2025 if the rug doesn’t get yanked.
Last week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runners bunch is a proper mixed bag of liquorish all sorts. From zero emissions lithium dreams to zero-emission gas-field tech, AI and a cheeky WA gold play, all the flavours were there in last weeks list.
EUROPEAN METALS HOLDINGS LTD (ASX: EMH)
Up 150 % (22c – 55c)
The Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the week is rollercoaster lithium tragic European Metals after it secured provisional approval for a government grant worth up to a lazy $645 million to ramp its Cinovec lithium project into production.
The grant is one of the single biggest direct project-level funding packages ever handed out for a critical raw materials play inside the European Union and has Cinovec already anointed as a strategic project of critical importance to the EU under its Critical Raw Materials Act.
It seems this long-time lithium hopefully is finally getting built, whether the lithium price likes it or not.
The company says its grant reimburses up to 35 per cent of eligible capex in annual draw-downs, with the only real strings being that the project has to be finished by 31 December 2032.
For a deposit that’s been in the too-hard basket since the Howard government, this is effectively a giant green flag wrapped in cash.
Cinovec is Europe’s largest hard-rock lithium resource with 7.2 million tonnes of lithium reserves straddling the Czech-German border in what the company says is one of the most mining-friendly corners of the continent.
The plan is a monster integrated mine and refinery spitting out battery-grade lithium hydroxide for the German car industry that is currently sweating on Chinese supply.
Friday’s announcement set fire to its share price that screamed to an intraday high of 55c, up 150 per cent from last week’s close of 22c on a huge $3.5 million-plus traded on the day.
After a decade of studies, demos and more capital raises than living memory, European Metals finally has a war chest that isn’t reliant on the spot price or dilution.
SYNERTEC CORPORATION LTD (ASX: SOP)
Up 120 % (2c – 4.2c)
Pipped at the post for the last week is zero-emissions tech darling Synertec Corporation which locked in a flagship contract with Shell’s Queensland Gas Company (QGC) to land its Powerhouse renewable microgrid onto a working coal-seam-gas sites in Queensland’s Surat Basin.
The deal marks the first time a major has officially backed the tech for a brownfields coal seam gas (CSG) operation and has now put Synertec on the map.
The company says its Powerhouse system is a fully islanded, AI-controlled solar battery beast that runs 24/7 with zero fossil-fuel backup with zero unplanned outages. The deal locks in its system for an initial five-year deployment to prove its mettle in the energy big leagues.
Its exactly the kind of thing upstream gas players need to hit their decarbonisation targets and keep protesters blocking off their tax paying roads.
The deal is structured as a six-month BOOM (Build-Own-Operate-Maintain) trial with a flat monthly rental – basically a try-before-you-buy deal that lets Shell QGC kick the tyres before rolling the tech out Queensland wide.
Delivery is slated for the end of next year, which means revenue kicks in almost immediately.
Curiously Tuesday’s after-market saw a mysterious 40.5 million share crossing at 1.8c for $730,000 that had the punting fraternity instantly intrigued.
Sure enough, Wednesday morning the Shell contract landed and the stock went full vertical from a 2c close to an intraday high of 4.2c for a 120 per cent gain on more than a million dollars worth of trading for the week.
For a company that’s spent years proving the tech in the field, this is the blue-chip validation the market has been waiting for. If the Powerhouse unit performs as advertised, expect follow-on orders to snowball across QGC’s hundreds of wells – and probably across the gas industry wide.
ENLITIC INCORPORATED LTD (ASX: ENL)
Up 105 % (2.2c – 4.5c)
Snagging the bronze medal in a photo-finish for the last week is medical-AI dark horse Enlitic, which woke from a slumber Tuesday to reveal it had been anointed one of only two approved vendors worldwide to provide AI-powered DICOM data-migration and workflow tools for health tech major Royal Philips’ entire enterprise-imaging customer base.
Philips boatsts $32 billion in revenue, a $40 billion market cap and operates across more than 100 countries and is clearly the 800-pound gorilla in the radiology industry.
The deal instantly plugs Enlitic’s ENDEX data-standardisation platform into thousands of hospitals, giving it a direct revenue pipeline into a radiology market that analysts peg between $54 - $120 billion and growing.
ENDEX uses “deep” AI-learning to clean, de-identify and standardise messy imaging data during migrations or day-to-day workflows – the exact pain point hospitals face when upgrading systems or merging datasets.
Enlitic’s stock surged on Tuesday, hiking from 2.2c last week to 4.5c by lunch time on $3 million-plus traded, for a 105 per cent gain from last week.
The company says the partnership opens the door to cross-selling Enlitic’s ENABLE module and potentially could provide deeper integration into Philips’ workflow suite.
With global radiology AI spend forecast to compound at a mind boggling 30 per cent for the rest of the decade, Enlitic has gone from speculative side-hustle to genuine global player almost overnight.
LATITUDE66 LTD (ASX: LAT)
Up 90% (4.8c – 9.1c)
Rounding out the Runners podium with a handy acquisition last week is gold junior Latitude66, which dropped two binding option deals to snatch an 80 per cent stake in its latest Laverton gold project.
The company says the deal covers some 17 granted mining tenements for 253-square-kilometres of prime real estate in one of the hottest gold addresses in the world, with the project boasting a tidy existing 13,500 ounce shallow JORC resource that looks ready to go.
The main prospect is its Red Dog open pit, which was mined by Matsa Resources back in 2019 for some 12,704 ounce at a very handy 2.3 grams per tonne (g/t) from a flat-lying oxide blanket that starts just 3m below surface.
That might sound skinny, but that’s nearly $80 million worth of gold in today’s figures and Latitude says the thing remains open in literally every direction.
Previous drilling outside the old pit walls still holds some solid hits like 4m running at 7.3g/t gold from just 13m and 6m going 4.8g/t from 22 m.
Throw in the nearby Tin Dog syenite-hosted system - also on a granted mining lease - and you’ve got a proper little starter-pack sitting just 7km from Brightstar’s Second Fortune mine and within easy trucking distance of no fewer than five operating mills.
The fast-track potential was not lost on Latitude which has swiftly moved to station a drill rig at the project before the ink had barely dried on the aquisition.
The company recently banked a non-dilutive $6 million war-chest - $2m cash and $4m in Carnaby Resources scrip - from divesting its Queensland copper-ground leaving it cashed-up and motivated to get its rigs humming in a white hot gold market and address.
Management says its first program is targeting immediate extensions to Red Dog and first-pass drilling at Tin Dog, with results expected just in time for Christmas.
While Laverton was the shiny new toy stealing the limelight last week, it is worth remembering Latitude’s Finnish projects still remain front of mind.
The company holds some 650,000 ounces of gold and 5800 tonnes of cobalt at its flagship KSB and PSB gold-cobalt projects in Finland – at a handy grade of 2.7g/t gold in open pits.
Management has repeatedly said both Finland and WA are core, but for now, Laverton gives the company a near-term, high-margin cash-flow option that awoke the market last week.
Lattitude66’s shares took off on Thursday, ripping from Friday’s 4.8c close to a high of 9.1c, up some 90 per cent on half a million dollars of strong volume.
Red Dog could easily turn out to have plenty of bite left in it in an address with plenty of oxide gold and needy mills within a stones throw away.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Andrew Todd
