ASX News LIVE | ASX to Rise as Commodities Lead the Charge; Gold hits 2,300/oz

The ASX 200 closed up +0.45% in a very range-bound day of trading that finished with all sectors in the green.

The biggest gainers on the index were tech (+1.18%) and utilities (+0.94%), which recovered some of their sharp losses in the past two-day drawdown.

The biggest gainers on the ASX 200 today were lithium players with both Arcadium Lithium (+5.82%) and Liontown Resources (+5.22%). While other miners and explorers closely followed as copper, gold, silver, and uranium prices pushed up the mining sector by +0.33%.

Copper rallied back above $9,000 a ton as investors weighed upbeat factory data from top consumer China and the potential for output cuts by the country’s leading smelters.

As copper reaches its January 2023 price, our local copper expert thinks things are ready to break higher.

A key moment for copper as it meets its Jan 2023 top.

Back then it was China’s reopening driving copper higher. Today, the story is all about supply.

A break higher and copper could move rapidly toward testing its all-time highs… pic.twitter.com/A9T3DvUMba

— James Cooper (@JCooperGeo) April 4, 2024

The ASX 200 is up by +0.47% to 7,878.8 this afternoon as almost all sectors recover from two days of selling pressure.

Only Staples (-0.19%) is in the red today while all others look strong, including yesterday’s big fallers, Real Estate (+1.07%) and Tech (+1.02%).

Commodities are the big movers today with Gold touching a new all-time high of US$2,300 per ounce, while copper also hit its highest value since January 2023, as strong demand met the long expected supply shortfalls in the metal.

Lithium producer Liontown Resources is up 6.5% in individual stocks, followed by Alumina up +5.25%.

Other notable movements today were gold explorer Emerald Resources up 4.15% and Uranium producer Boss Energy gaining +3.64%.

Cochlear shares are also up 1.6% as the ACCC said it would not oppose the acquisition of Oticon.

The independent expert review of Seven Groups’ takeover bid for building materials company Boral [ASX:BLD] was released today.

The full review can be read here, but the key takeaway is that the expert determined that the offer ‘is not fair and not reasonable‘.

As a response, the board reiterated its position that shareholders should reject the offer and take no action on documents sent by Seven Group.

Boral’s share price is up by 1.1% in trading so far today, at $5.98 per share.

The company’s share price has been up 63.44% in the past 12 months. It began on an uptrend around August last year when the company significantly raised its prices across all of its building materials, citing inflationary costs.

Resource exploration company WA1 Resources [ASX:WA1] has jumped today without announcement on the ASX.

Speculators are awash with ideas, including heavy buying pressure from Morgan Stanley or potential core early results.

The first looks more likely than the second, but for now, we are in the dark for the large movement.

Expect an ASX ‘speeding fine’ to shine light on this movement in the next 48 hours.

Good morning. Charlie here,

The ASX 200 opened up +0.64% to 7,832.0 with all sectors in the green as a broad range of commodities gain overnight.

Gold hits a record US$2,300 per ounce, while copper, uranium, and silver also surge higher.

In the US, a ‘no surprises’ speech from Fed Chair J Powell gave Wall Street space to eke out small gains after a corrective first half of the week.

Wall Street: S&P 500 +0.11%, Dow -0.11%, Nasdaq +0.23%.

Overseas: FTSE flat, STOXX +0.54%, Nikkei -0.97%, SSE -0.18%.

The Aussie dollar rose +0.77% to US 65.65 cents.

US 10-year bond yields flat at 4.35%.

Australian 10-year bond yields +7bps to 4.14%.

Gold rose +0.87% to US$2,300.2, while Silver rose +1.01% to US$27.17.

Bitcoin rose +1.11% to US$66,145, while Ethereum rose 1.15% to US$3,315.

Oil Brent rose +0.72% to US$89.56, while WTI Crude rose +0.26% to US$85.65.

Iron ore fell -3% to US$98.55 a tonne.