Good Afternoon and welcome to HotCopper highlights for the end of Week 8, I’m Jonathon Davidson. Apologies for not being here last week, I was up in Darwin – you can catch episode 2 of HotCopper’s Market Watch podcast on the website or on Spotify to learn about an interesting rumour I heard while I was up there.

In the meantime, let’s get into it.

Elixir Energy was drawing all the attention on Friday as that gas explorer announced it was looking to farm-out its Mongolian gas assets in the Gobi desert after years of exploring in the region but recently pivoting back home to Queensland.

Elixir didn’t name who the farmout partner is, just that the UK company is “controlled by Mongolian business interests.” The market didn’t like the news, and shares fell -3% – perhaps because Elixir now loses its 51% stake in the project.

Meanwhile, Pilbara Minerals stole the show on Thursday as the hotly-watched stock’s books continue to show persistent pain on the back of low lithium prices.

Profit after tax fell by -132% – in fact, the company posted a loss. Pilbara Minerals was for a year straight the most shorted stock on the ASX – that’s now Boss Energy – but it remains a favourite with swing traders. 

Earlier in the week, it was Bendigo Bank and NAB snatching a lot of attention as those two banks posted weak results one after the other, helping to bring down the entire financials index through Week 8. 

CBA’s stellar run took some contagion downside on the side, and with CBA falling, as well as BHP, the entire ASX has dropped away from the 8,500 points level for now. Wall Street has a magnificent 7, but the ASX seems to have a Magnificent 2. 

So what about the most discussed?

FBR Limited, a regular on the trending list, was causing chatter when it swung up 16% on Friday after completing a house with its robot building tech for a company called PulteGroup. But earlier in the week, the stock sunk 50% after it revealed JV talks with a US company had fallen through. 

Elsewhere, Fortescue remains in vogue as investors assess what weakness across iron ore miners means for the stock, especially after the company recently revealed it was taking a step back from more green energy projects. Don’t forget Andrew Forrest was possessed by the spirit of green hydrogen only a year ago. 

Finally, niobium darling WA1 Resources continued to command attention, especially after it released more testwork and assay results – something the company is pretty good at doing.

That’s HotCopper Highlights for this week, I’m Jonathon Davidson, have a great week and we’ll see you on Monday.