Hi David,
The comments were definitely not supposed to be condescending in anyway, but when webinars are live our oratory is not always perfect, we apologise if any offence was taken – remember Shawn did Chem Eng at University and has worked as a professional Trader and Research Lead through his career, no public speaking unfortunately.
As you say commodities are cyclical and as such volatile, and if we are correct, they have further to run on the upside. However, the Australian Materials Sector was up close to +50% last FY, not too shabby but as you say some of the more speculative names have come well off their highs. At the time of answering this question the majors are still outperforming the ASX in 2026:
- Lynas (+45%), BHP Group (+30%), RIO Tinto (+17%), South32 (+10%), and Sandfire (SFR) +7%.
Copper remains our top pick from the commodities and its related shares are performing solidly. It’s only when we look at the gold and uranium names that the clouds form, again in 2026:
- Northern Star (-29%), Deep Yellow (-24%), Regis resources (-20%), Evolution Mining (-7%), and Paladin (-3%)
The two stocks we hold, EVN (chosen for gold due to its ~25% copper exposure) & PDN, look ok on the surface but they are trading significantly down from their 2026 highs, as are their peers.
When we look at gold since Sydney hosted the Olympic Games, it has now corrected 30% twice and more than 45% once hence the current pullback from the panic buying highs is “normal” from a longer-term perspective, although its understandably unnerving. MM continues to believe central bank buying will turn golds fortunes back around, but we aren’t yet planning to increase our exposure to the precious metal having fortuitously sold our core holding in Newmont (ASX: NEM) into panic buying back in March, when gold was trading above US$5,400.
