Dollar Bill: The year the ASX remembered how to party. The winners, losers and hardest partiers for 2025

Dollar Bill knew something strange was happening when the usual pre-Christmas gloom at the club was replaced by old brokers comparing multi-baggers like golf handicaps. One bloke - who hasn’t picked a winner since the mining boom of ’07 and still confuses EBITDA with a breed of racehorse - claimed he’d backed a “fifty-bagger” before lunch, causing The Dollar’s port to attempt an exit from its heavy crystal glass while leaning over to hear more. But as it turns out, this was the year when even the ghosts of old IPOs came back to life and the small end of the ASX rediscovered the kind of form that makes old men check their screens before their blood pressure.

After two years of rates anxiety, liquidity strangulation and a market that couldn’t decide whether to hibernate or panic, 2025 delivered something the small end of the ASX had forgotten how to produce: genuine exuberance backed by actual capital flow. Gold ran like it had an appointment with destiny, rare earths were thrown onto the geopolitical stage like unwilling actors and the metals buried deep in the wiring of the AI revolution suddenly became investment darlings. But the real standout was silver - the unloved sidekick of the precious-metals family which more than doubled this year with spot up about 140 per cent. It wasn’t just joining gold’s parade; it was riding in the lead float, waving regally at the crowd while no one quite knew how to price it.

The macro backdrop was the kind of circus Dollar Bill secretly enjoys. The US dollar wobbled like a tired heavyweight, central banks finally admitted rate cuts were inevitable and President Trump’s return to office threw tariffs, supply chains and critical minerals into a blender. Markets pretended they wanted calm, but what they really wanted was clarity and 2025 handed them a big, bold marker pen. The world split its commodity allegiances down the middle and the small end of the ASX became the accidental beneficiary.

Gold was the anchor. That thing didn’t rally - it detonated. Up about 70 per cent year-to-date and punching through a new high just this week above US$4500 or A$6700 an ounce, it made every geology graduate with a forgotten tenement suddenly look like a genius. Producers’ cash margins exploded, developers recalculated project economics on the fly and explorers who hadn’t seen a meaningful drill result in a decade were dusting off old presentations. Whilst the small caps led the charge, Evolution Mining still surged more than 165 per cent, Newmont soared 150 per cent and Lynas Rare Earths, riding both the gold tide and the geopolitical rare-earths war, finished the year up 95 per cent. It was a reminder that even big companies can still deliver small-company thrills when the commodity winds are howling.

In the mid-cap bracket, the signs of life became unmistakable. DroneShield kicked off the year with the heat of a defence industry darling in a war-torn environment before its late-year collapse when its long serving Managing Director decided to take the money and run, selling his stock into DroneShield’s burgeoning share price run. This caused Dollar Bill to reflect on his long-standing advice: if management are sprinting for the exit, don’t bother grabbing your coat or avoiding the women and children, just run.

Other mid-caps like Regis Resources, Genesis Minerals and Liontown tickled the till with all three stocks up about 200 per cent for the year. 

But below the $5 billion line is where the fireworks truly began. 4DMedical climbed 760 per cent as its lung-imaging tech broke into commercial reality. EOS rocketed 677 on revived defence momentum. Predictive Discovery surged 230 per cent on the back of the gold super-cycle. These aren’t fad stocks, they are real businesses that caught real tailwinds. Dollar Bill doesn’t hand out compliments easily (unless the dress perfectly matches the heels), but it’s been a long time since this part of the market felt this authentic.

And then there were the market overachievers - the ones that turned back-of-beer-coaster speculation into late-night bragging rights. Dateline Resources rose a scarcely believable 7566 cent for the year as the combination of a good-looking Californian gold project, some rare earths nearology and an unexpected blessing from President Trump sent liquidity crashing through the door. At one stage Dateline stacked on a crazy 22,000 per cent after President Trump announced it would be the next big US rare earths producer. The message about Dateline having a great gold project and also some ground that is close to someone else’s great rare earths project got a little muddled by the time it reached The Donald and may have even been delivered in reverse!) Sunrise Energy jumped 3510 per cecnt in the scandium renaissance and Forrestania Resources climbed 2092 per cent as the gold price turned marginal projects into overnight contenders.

At the small end Kaili Resources caused Dollar Bill to take a second look over the top of his glasses after it briefly surged more than 50,000 per cent in just a few days. In one wild week Kaili ran from 0.06c to $3.18 causing Dollar Bill to think someone was playing funny buggers with this Chinese backed stock. Dollar Bill likes funny buggers. The ASX stepped in issuing some “please explains” and dollar Bill always enjoys reading the responses to those pesky ASX please explains over a couple of glasses of his favourite bold red. 

And all the while the gold beneficiaries kept stacking up. Focus Minerals rallied more than 2000 per cent after resurrecting underground production at Coolgardie. Altair delivered a clean 10-bagger on the gold-plus-rare-earths mix and Mount Ridley Mines - delivered the rare earths plus gallium one-two punch at a time when gallium was strutting its stuff at nearly $1 million a tonne. Mt Ridley ran as much as 4000 per cent at one point. Some understandable profit taking since has seen the price retrace from those highs. The Mount Ridley share price is it’s now “only” up about 810 per cent year-to-date.

Even the IPO market found its swagger again. 3D Printing player Metal Powder Works floated at 20 cents and ran skywards towards $5 in no time, reminding everyone that Australians will still back industrial innovation when the winds turn even slightly favourable.

But it wouldn’t be a proper ASX year without a few disasters. Biotech, the market’s most emotionally volatile sector, earned its reputation again. Botanix collapsed 75 per cent, Telix shed 60 per cent and CSL - the former King of the Index - lost 36 per cent, wiping nearly $30 billion in value after softer vaccine guidance. 

So, what does 2026 look like? Recent rate cuts in the US and Australia are finally filtering into forecasts. Gold’s bull market isn’t done; central banks keep buying, geopolitics keep deteriorating and governments keep spending money they don’t have. Silver, having doubled this year, is no longer the runner-up metal but a fully-fledged protagonist that suddenly matters to industrial supply chains and precious metals investors alike. Rare earths, gallium, scandium and antimony remain front-and-centre of Western industrial strategies. The global AI build-out still needs copper, semiconductors, specialised alloys and power infrastructure that remains chronically under-invested. The small-cap revival isn’t a fad; it’s a thing – and it just might be here to stay.

Dollar Bill has seen enough false dawns to know that markets can turn on a dime. Bond markets remain temperamental, the Fed hates being second-guessed and volatility has a way of turning up uninvited. But this year wasn’t driven by euphoria - it was driven by capital finally rediscovering its appetite for growth and leverage after two years of hiding in defensive fortresses. That rarely unwinds quickly.

As Dollar Bill nursed the last of the vintage port hidden in the special place by the barman at the club this week, one of the old miscreants leaned over and said, “Hey Dollar, this feels like 2005 again.” Admittedly, he’s usually wrong, but for once, he might have stumbled into the truth. For the first time in years, the market feels alive - and in 2026, it might even start to believe in itself a little more.

Dollar Bill thinks those algorithms that ate his broker might have a hard time predicting next year’s winners and hats off to that.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au