Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen, it’s been less of a rollercoaster ride than it was a ferocious bucking bull on the markets this week.
The market opened the week with near-record losses after China retaliated with tariffs in the United States, which saw the S&P 500 shed more than $5.8 trillion in value in four days. It was the largest value drop in the index’s history.
It seemed Trump and his tariffs were about ready to extend his wall from Mexico and around the entire United States, aiming to completely stop imports, lock the doors and throw away the keys.
Markets were all doom and gloom, before the leader of the free world pulled his best April Fool’s Day impersonation and took it all back on Thursday, announcing a 90-day pause on the reciprocal tariffs his administration had applied to about 60 countries.
This, of course, saw the S&P 500 surge back nearly 10 per cent, giving us the highest one-day value gain in the index’s history. Two records in one week is enough to make anyone queasy.
Unfortunately for Australia, the 10 per cent tariff placed on us has not been repealed, which still seems baffling, as the US makes more money from us than we do from them. It could always be worse, though, in two swift retaliatory moves this week, the US bumped its 100 per cent tariffs on China up to 125 per cent, then 145 per cent.
With Trump’s temperamental tariffs leaving investors dizzy only one thing is certain – that’s uncertainty itself.
And with global uncertainty comes yet more yellow metal all-time highs. The gold price hit a staggering US$3200 (A$5175) an ounce this week.
Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runners of the Week list is notably sparse. With cautious investors remaining on the sidelines and hesitant to dive in, only a handful of promising gold juniors have attracted any significant interest.
Bucking the trend and leading the pack this week was a surprising candidate and a nice change of flavour for the yellow-tinted Runners’ list. A 3D-printing biotech company took out the podium, with its world-leading innovative regenerative therapy.
OSTEOPORE LTD (ASX: OSX)
up 140% (0.8c – 3.2c)
This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week is regenerative medicine company Osteopore Limited, which saw its share price soar on news its 3D-printed orthopedic and cranial bone-like implants were approved for distribution into the European Union.
The Australian-Singaporean-based Osteopore is a global leader in off-the-shelf 3D-printed surgical bone structure implants, which can speed up bone regrowth and are then reabsorbed by the body to leave only a patient’s healthy regrown bone.
The company’s share price flew from a close of just 2 cents last week to a high of 4.8c on announcement for a gain of 140 per cent, with more than $3 million of paper traded.
The EU approval was specifically for its custom orthopaedic and cranial implants that complement its existing off-the-shelf neurosurgical and craniofacial implants, which are already in use in Europe.
Osteopore seemed a lone shining light outside of our goldies this week. The company easily took out first place on the back of its ingenious bone-like resorbable implants. The tech, which naturally enables improved bone healing, is now available across multiple continents in multiple therapeutic areas.
GOLDEN HORSE MINERALS (ASX: GHM)
up 77% (24c – 42.5c)
Golden Horse Minerals made a late charge up the Runners list to take second place this week. The gold junior’s share price surged up a very tidy 77 per cent from Thursday to 42.5c from last week’s close of 24c on more than $1.5M of stock traded.
The company shot out of the blocks on Thursday after it unveiled assay results from its Hopes Hill gold project in Western Australia. A drilling program under the existing pit at Hopes Hill’s Central zone revealed high-grade gold intercepts, including an impressive 83 metre at 2.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 103m, with an even richer section of 43m at 4.5 g/t gold.
Golden Horse says its drilling program was launched to validate historical drilling data and explore the mineralisation potential directly below the former profitable pit floor, while also assessing the mineralisation’s continuity along the strike.
The company says the results, 50m beneath a prior intercept of 61m at 2.5g/t gold from 91m, are part of a 1.3-kilometre gold trend that remains open along strike and at depth, signalling significant growth potential.
Drilling operations are ongoing across the Central zone and the full 1.3km length of the open pit, with more results anticipated in the coming weeks.
The ASX newcomer, which listed just last December after raising a handy $18M at IPO, is getting active in the Southern Cross greenstone belt, laying down a swathe of new extensional drilling at its massive new consolidated landholding.
Golden Horse says there has been minimal new drill testing since mining ceased in the mid 1990s at around $350 per ounce gold. There’s one thing for sure, at the current $3200 an ounce gold price, the market is going to be much more appreciative of any more stellar hits in the coming weeks.
LEEUWIN METALS (ASX: LM1)
Up 69% (13c – 22c)
Leeuwin Metals showed a steady uptick across a week that was anything but. A review of its historical gold drilling results unveiled extensive shallow high-grade mineralisation over 3km of strike at its recently acquired Marda gold project in WA.
The review results provide the company with some clear drill targets and highlight the strong exploration upside with assays of up to 62m at 1.94g/t gold from 102m and 48m at 1.95g/t gold from 94m.
Four solid days of more than $500,000 of share trading saw the gold junior’s share price peak on Friday, up more than 69 per cent to a high of 22c from a finish of 13c last week.
Marda Central hosts four existing pits that were mined by Ramelius Resources from 2019 to 2023. Its core trend spans across 3km with mineralisation characterised by banded iron formations and quartz veining associated with sulphides.
The company says the results lie outside four open pits previously mined by Ramelius and highlight a significant opportunity to define new mineralised zones beyond the existing open pits.
Leeuwin is now ramping up to its maiden drilling campaign at the project, eager to test gold extensions along the banded-iron formation trend and validate the unmined zones in a record high gold price environment.
The company’s strategy is to define extensive high-grade zones outside the existing pits in the hope the all-time-high gold prices will breathe second life into this obviously well-endowed gold system.
Pivotal Metals’ Horden Lake copper project in the emerging copper jurisdiction of Quebec, Canada. Credit: File.
PIVOTAL METALS LIMITED (ASX: PVT)
up 54% (0.65c – 1c)
The silent but deadly Pivotal Metals snuck into the final spot on the Bulls N’ Bears Runners list this week, after it rapidly improved on a week where there was no news at all to the market.
The company last week announced a drilling update for its substantial Horden Lake copper project in the emerging copper jurisdiction of Quebec, Canada.
Its Horden Lake project has a 28 million tonne resource grading 1.5 per cent copper equivalent, which Pivotal says is predominantly copper. The resource remains open in multiple directions.
The company got a run on Wednesday after its managing director and chief executive officer Ivan Fairhall released an interview in which he talked up the flagship project.
Pivotal’s share price peaked at 1c on the day, which was up nearly 54 per cent on last week’s finish, after Fairhall told the market just how substantial the Canada resource could soon become.
As a general mark for a standalone sulphide mining operations in Australia, 10Mt of resource ensures a 10-year operation at a respectable 1Mt per annum processing facility.
Horden Lake bodes well for Pivotal, should it prove its growing 28Mt resource to be a profitable one.
The company says copper mineralisation displays high conductivity that aligns with its deposit’s known signature. As such electromagnetic surveys have recently identified multiple conductors mirroring Horden Lake’s profile, suggesting significant down-plunge and along-strike extensions of the mineral system.
The company says its drilling is now targeting high-priority shallow EM anomalies along strike southwest of the main deposit.
With its campaign paving the way for an updated resource estimate, the company is hoping its sub-$10M market cap valuation can keep a steady run, just two weeks after copper hit all-time high prices.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
