But even against an improving outlook, and with the Australian stock market hitting a mid-week all-time high, there were warning signs that earnings season could disappoint, potentially dampening investor enthusiasm.

With that mix of optimism and pessimism it was left to individual stocks to outperform, with several eye-catching moves driven by discovery news, including a 27% increase by Patriot Battery Metals and 32% rise by Peregrine Gold.

Patriot’s move up from 37c to 47c, with trades as high as 52c on Tuesday, followed news of a high-grade caesium discovery in Canada (caesium is a technology metal). Peregrine’s rise from 19c to 26c, with trades up to 32c, followed news of an iron ore discovery in WA.

Another highlight of the week was the continued strong flow of capital into the mining sector with two silver stocks leading the way as the “poor man’s gold” came within touching distance of US$40 an ounce, settling around US$39.28/oz.

Sun Silver, which has caught the eye of U.S. investors, raised $30 million for work on its Maverick Springs project in Nevada, while West Coast Silver raised $6 million for its Elizabeth Hill project in WA.

Overall, the Australian market, as measured by the all ordinaries index, rose by a marginal 0.4% to remain close to an all-time high at 8977 points.

The broad-based metals and mining index, boosted by the iron price ore recovery, did best with a 6% increase while the gold index gained 2%.

Leading investment bank UBS cautioned that the recent gains in share prices might be hard to sustain, warning that major companies with June 30 balance dates were expected to record another year of declining earnings.

Research house Morningstar also warned that the “earnings winter” would be the third in succession with a 1% contraction tipped for the year just ended, following a 4% decline in 2024 and a 10% fall in 2023.

“The miners are the main culprits,” Morningstar said. “After riding the post-Covid boom, conditions are softening for BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue with a combined earnings drop of around 13% for the trio in the 2025 financial year,” it said.

Wilsons Advisory and Citi echoed what Morningstar said about iron ore. Wilsons acknowledged that market fundamentals for it had been “surprisingly resilient” but a reckoning is coming. Citi said the iron ore market was heading towards a 100 million tonne surplus by 2027.

Fortescue, the major pure-play iron ore stock, shrugged off the doomsayers with a 10% ($1.77) share price rise this week to $18.83, pleasing its shareholders with a June quarter report which revealed record shipments of 198 million tonnes and falling costs.

The higher iron ore price and cost discipline will have done the heavy lifting in Fortescue’s price rise but a contributing factor could be investor relief that the company is continuing to walk away from its wasteful plunge into hydrogen.

RBC Capital Markets sees Fortescue continuing to perform strongly though the stock is now within sight of the broker’s $19 share price target.

Gold tantalised again, reaching an all-time high of US$3435.38/oz on Wednesday (the third time it has slipped past US$3433/oz in the past three months) but retreated when investors lost confidence to trade around US$3382/oz.

Reporting season for gold miners started with news and share price moves that included:

  • Northern Star, up 19c to $16.21 after the company reported annual gold production of 1.634 million ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of A$2163/oz, less than half the current Australian gold price of A$5181/oz. RBC is tipping a price for the stock of $19.
  • Emerald Resources, up 6c to $3.76 after reporting that it was targeting annual gold production of 300,000oz a year as it expands on several fronts.
  • Greatland Gold, down 25c to $6.95 with the new owner of the big Telfer mine in WA scheduled to file its maiden annual result next week.
  • Pantoro Gold, up 79c to $3.78 as it continues to impress with its work on taming the notoriously difficult Norseman goldfield in WA.
  • Torque Metals, up by 2c to 22c after reporting the intersection of 5m of drill core assaying 27.93 grams of gold a tonne from a depth of 380 metres at its Paris project near Kalgoorlie in WA.
  • Magnetic Resources, up 3c to $1.47 after releasing a definitive feasibility study into its Lady Julie project near Laverton in WA. Shaw and Partners has a buy tip on the tock and price target to $3.33, and
  • Capricorn Metals, down 3c to $9.41 after announcing a share swap takeover of Warriedar Resources which rose by 3.5c to 14c.

Copper, as mentioned earlier, rose as trade tensions eased, but knowing which copper price is the best guide to the market remains tricky thanks to hefty tariffs on the metal proposed by the U.S.

On the New York commodities exchange, copper traded up to an all-time high of US$5.89/lb, before easing to US$5.88/lb, but in London copper was trading at US$4.48/lb.

AIC Mines, the latest owner of the historic Eloise copper mine in Queensland, rose by 1.5c to 34c but could go as high as 60c, according to Bell Potter which upgraded an earlier price forecast of 56c. Shaw is more confident, tipping a 70c price for AIC.

Copper takeover target New World fell to Canada’s Kinterra at a price of 6.7c a share after Central Asia walked away.

Local copper leader Sandfire added 28c to $11.20 and 29Metals rose by 2c to 35c.

Patriot, which led the lithium sector with its caesium discovery in Canada, wasn’t the only lithium stock to have a decent week thanks to further signs of a lithium recovery kicking in after two years in the sin bin.

Spodumene containing 6% lithium rose during the week to US$710 a tonne and while still 15% down on this time last year, the trend is up.

Pilbara Minerals rose with the spodumene price to $1.86, up 21c and the highest since March. Liontown followed with a 7c rise to 95c while Core crept up by 1c to 12c.

Rare earth stocks rose in line with their most openly traded product, a blend of neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr), which added 3% over the week to trade at US$61/kilo.

Along with the higher price for NdPr came a rush of fund raising, including:

  • Meteoric Resources which pulled in $42.5 million for work on its Brazilian projects while its share price rose by 1c to 17c.
  • American Rare Earths raised $15 million for work on its Halleck Creek project in the U.S. with a share price which slipped 1c lower to 35c, and
  • RareX, which is raising $2 million for work on its Cummins Range project in WA.

Uranium stocks had a soft week as the price of their metal eased back by another US50c/lb to US$72.25/lb.

Paladin led the way down with a fall of 36c to $7.55 after releasing a poorly received June quarter report with Bell Potter downgrading its price tip from $8.70 to $7.25 while describing the stock as “overcooked”. Citi disagreed, retaining Paladin as a buy with a price target of $10.10.

Other U-moves included Deep Yellow, down 1.5c at $1.81. Bannerman, up 7c at $3.03, and Boss, down 21c at $3.58 after announcing the resignation of long-serving managing director  Duncan Craib, who will return as a non-executive director in January.

Other news and market moves of interest included:

  • Syrah Resources rising by 1.5c to 41c as it makes progress with its graphite assets and benefits from a big U.S. tariff on Chinese material.
  • Talga shared the U.S. hit on Chinese graphite, rising by 3c to 48c.
  • Tivan, which is working with Japan’s Sumitomo to develop the Sandover fluorite project in WA, rose by 1.6c to 11c. Fluorite yields a wide variety of industrial products.
  • Lunnon Metals rose by 1c to 23c after announcing a positive study into its Baker and Foster nickel mines. The stock also benefited from a modest uptick in the nickel price and BHP’s abandonment of the Kabanga nickel project in Tanzania, and
  • Broken Hill Mines, a star when it listed strongly on Monday at 47c. faded to close at 44c.