ASX 200 surges to ‘highest point in history' on Tuesday
Sky News Business Editor Ross Greenwood says the ASX 200 today closed at its 'highest point in history' – up 0.84 per cent.
'I should note the highest intraday level – 8560 – was back on Valentine's Day in February,' Mr Greenwood said.
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News.com.au
26 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Top 10 at 11: Gallium in spotlight as ASX climbs toward new record high
Morning, and welcome to Stockhead's Top 10 (at 11… ish), highlighting the movers and shakers on the ASX in early-doors trading. With the market opening at 10am sharp eastern time, the data is taken at 10.15am, once trading kicks off in earnest. In brief, this is what the market has been up to this morning. ASX reaches for new highs Climbing 0.43% in the first hour of trade, the ASX is within spitting distance of a new all-time high, just 0.13% away. Nine of 11 sectors are driving the bourse's momentum, led by energy (+1.18%). Info tech (-0.23%) and health care (-0.33%) are dragging alongside the All Ords Gold index (-1.78%), down for a second day in a row. The ASX 200 Resources is pushing in the other direction (+0.78%), as evidenced by the glut of resources stocks on our Top 10 winners list for the morning. WINNERS Code Name Last % Change Volume Market Cap JAV Javelin Minerals Ltd 0.003 50% 60002 $12,252,298 VML Vital Metals Limited 0.003 50% 3000000 $11,790,134 KP2 Kore Potash PLC 0.06 36% 971577 $28,764,401 AYT Austin Metals Ltd 0.005 25% 2071330 $6,296,765 PV1 Provaris Energy Ltd 0.011 22% 450000 $6,282,012 ADG Adelong Gold Limited 0.006 20% 802466 $10,343,383 ALY Alchemy Resource Ltd 0.006 20% 200000 $5,890,381 BLZ Blaze Minerals Ltd 0.003 20% 6294900 $3,917,370 MGU Magnum Mining & Exp 0.006 20% 85000 $5,608,254 PLC Premier1 Lithium Ltd 0.012 20% 583333 $3,680,606 In the news... Blaze Minerals (ASX:BLZ) is turning heads after hitting gallium and rubidium mineralisation at its Ntungamo project in Uganda. While the mineralisation isn't particularly high grade in this first pass of drilling, the price of gallium has surged 23% since January last year, marking the critical mineral as a lucrative exploration target. BLZ's drilling also encountered scandium mineralisation, but no neodymium or praseodymium of any economic significance. LAGGARDS Code Name Last % Change Volume Market Cap PAB Patrys Limited 0.001 -33% 9426236 $3,086,171 G50 G50Corp Ltd 0.14 -26% 225759 $30,513,555 CRR Critical Resources 0.003 -25% 2829838 $10,456,885 CHM Chimeric Therapeutic 0.004 -20% 100000 $10,075,971 CZN Corazon Ltd 0.002 -20% 45143 $2,961,431 TMX Terrain Minerals 0.002 -20% 71000 $5,621,392 VRC Volt Resources Ltd 0.004 -20% 1250000 $23,423,890 CF1 Complii Fintech Ltd 0.018 -18% 60481 $12,570,660 CCO The Calmer Co Int 0.0025 -17% 28571 $9,034,060 IFG Infocusgroup Hldltd 0.005 -17% 21500 $1,655,771 In the news... G50 Corp's (ASX:G50) has also released a gallium-based announcement, although the market wasn't quite as impressed with the results as in BLZ's case. While G50's mineralogy study has confirmed the presence of gallium in three types of mineral samples at its Golconda gold-silver-zinc project, the content is fairly low, represented in just 38% of the host rock. The mineral type with the best gallium content of 55 parts per million accounts for just 7% of the rock content, meaning G50 will need to extract and concentrate the critical mineral before it can be sold on to off takers.
ABC News
36 minutes ago
- ABC News
Australian designers tackle fast fashion with eco-creations
Regional clothing designers are stitching a place in the fashion world by turning their isolation into eco-friendly opportunities. But they say more needs to be done to keep them and other small designers sewing. From vintage Indian silk saris and high-end fashion fabric offcuts to op shop curtains and linen, regional designers are thrifty in sourcing materials because of the distance to city suppliers. The recycling focus is also better for the environment in a market flooded with fast fashion, against which smaller designers struggle to compete. According to the South Australian government, Australia is one of the world's largest consumers of textiles, purchasing an average of 53 clothing items per person a year. More than half of the nation's unwanted clothing — about 222,000 tonnes — is sent to landfill each year. It causes resource wastage, increased greenhouse emissions, and significant financial costs for local councils. Horricks Vale Collections designer Nikki Atkinson, who was named South Australia's AgriFutures Rural Women's Award winner in 2024, is passionate about addressing clothing waste and champions natural fibres. She watches her fabric growing on the lambs outside her window. The farm's wool is manufactured into a soft fibre for high-end wedding dresses. Her rural location, while isolated from a large customer base, gives her a marketing edge. "Living on the land and seeing what my husband and his family do every single day and just having that deep connection to the land is where the whole story's come from," she says. However, she says it is difficult to find skilled workers because there is no longer an Australian manufacturing industry. "[When tariffs were lifted 30 years ago] it was cheaper for us to make things overseas, so that's when the skill level dropped," Ms Atkinson says. "People do want Australian Made and they do want quality, but we've got nobody that can make it." There is optimism about more people embracing slow fashion. Former Vogue magazine contributor, writer and stylist, Joanne Gambale, runs a fashion consultancy and education business that aims to reduce fashion wastage and help independent designers. She says regional designers are unique, but it is hard to compete on price with fast fashion. "You're competing with crazy margins that are being achieved because of offshoring the whole process, the making as well," Ms Gambale says. "That will always, if it is cheap prices, involve unethical practices, like below poverty wages. Her company focuses on op shop stylist advice and sewing lessons and camps for tweens, mentoring them in upcycling pre-loved clothes that would otherwise end up in landfill. She says the previous generation of consumers bought less clothing and saved up for major, higher-quality purchases. "[Now] no-one wants to pay because they've been kind of brainwashed into thinking fashion should be cheap," she says. To the Power of You, started by Anastasia Gazis in Perth, aims to establish shared community-based fashion spaces called Slow Fashion Hubs with equipment and a digital online presence to reduce costs. Ms Gazis says there is no point trying to tackle "Goliath" fast fashion, but rather develop a national network of micro producers to share knowledge, education and a digital presence. "So many of us are working in pockets doing brilliant, community-based work, but we lack shared infrastructure, shared systems, and a way to amplify each other's efforts," Ms Gazis says. "Together we're a lot stronger, we would have a national reach. "The plan is to offer communities access to equipment like sewing machines and drafting tables where it doesn't exist, and foster a co-working environment for designers, fibre artists, menders [and] educators where they can share knowledge, reduce isolation and grow their impact." Port Lincoln designer Sue Catt worked part-time to support her dressmaking up until 18 months ago when she went full-time, balancing sewing alterations, dressmaking and creating her own fashion label garments. She taught dressmaking classes and encouraged students to not just buy retail fabrics, but to explore op shops and household linens. She says most regional designers work in their own spaces, but there is merit in coming together occasionally for sharing ideas, techniques, materials and support. Ms Catt says slow fashion is important for saving the environment, cultural histories and general skills and education. Based in Whyalla, FreetheRip designer and maker, Emily Parker, uses vintage fabrics from op shops for her clothing. She says a lack of access to customers and trying to compete with fast fashion means she can only pursue her fashion dreams part time. "My aim is to get more people interested in sustainable fashion and to just think about what they're purchasing," Ms Parker says. The university graduate started her own business two years ago and says it is a tough gig. "I work on the weekends [at another job] and then through the week I focus my energy on my designs and sewing," Ms Parker says. Port Lincoln Raff-A-Ella designer Raffael Veldhuyzen uses vintage silk saris from India. She says she first sourced them when she studied yoga there 10 years ago, as well as remnant pieces that might otherwise end up in landfill. "Some plain silk I get from a bridal designer in Melbourne, and they're her offcuts essentially, so it's really sustainable, dead-stock fabric, and then I plant dye it," Ms Veldhuyzen says.
The Australian
44 minutes ago
- The Australian
Rewire the rollout – go underground to win energy standoff
Transgrid transmission lines running over rural properties. Picture: Ash Smith You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback. You can now listen to The Australian's articles. The re-election of the Labor government has reconfirmed the transition to renewable energy and the 82 per cent target by 2030. But an integral component of that transition – the rollout of high-voltage transmission lines – is not going well. Of the 10,000km to be completed by 2050, only a few hundred kilometres have been finished; community opposition has intensified and the regulatory approval process that Chris Bowen called not fit for purpose in 2022 has yet to be reformed. Every transmission project is years late and way over budget. EnergyConnect has blown out six times from the initial estimate ($700m to $4.1bn); HumeLink by five times ($1bn to $4.9bn); Marinus Link by three times ($3bn for two cables to $4.8bn for one cable); and CopperString by eight times ($1.8bn to $13.9bn). Every year or so the estimated cost of every project has increased and the scheduled completion date delayed. Undoubtedly there will be further cost increases and delays. Such eye-watering blowouts are partly explained by worldwide commodity price escalations, but the primary reason is woefully underestimated costs with impossible deadlines. Transmission companies have an inherent incentive to submit lowball estimates, because once a project is approved by the Australian Energy Regulator, it is never unapproved. The perverse outcome is transmission companies are rewarded with a regulated return based on whatever the final cost of the project turns out to be. So the higher the cost, the higher the return for shareholders, usually foreign investors. The AER has not held transmission companies accountable for their underestimates and flawed cost-benefit justifications and has passed on the extra billions of dollars to electricity consumers. They have yet to see the impacts on their bills, but transmission tariffs are set to multiply manyfold in the coming years. Another aspect of the rollout that is not going well is the ham-fisted dealings of transmission companies with local communities and landowners, creating widespread resistance as well as delays and costs. The groundswell opposition to 'hosting' overhead lines is becoming more strident. There is no enthusiasm for massive 500-kilovolt transmission lines, with 75m towers, 26 suspended wires, a 70-100m-wide easement, and access tracks blighting the landscape across hundreds of kilometres. Lecturing communities on the common good is just insulting. Transmission companies have failed to foster a social licence for their projects. What should be done? Three suggestions. First, hold transmission companies to account for their estimates by requiring them to contribute to cost increases above the initial AER-approved budget. This will encourage genuine estimates in the first place. Second, look at ways to scale back the extent and frenetic schedule of the transmission rollout to mitigate costs for consumers and social and environmental impacts. In particular, focus on locating renewable energy generation as close as possible to capital city load centres, not hundreds of kilometres away, and thereby reduce the need for new transmission. Install more rooftop solar (residential and business) together with more wind (onshore and offshore) close to load centres, supplemented by battery firming. The Snowy Hydro 2.0 project. Also, make use of spare capacity on transmission (and distribution) networks and upgrade where possible on existing easements, augmented with batteries for fault response and storage of above-capacity energy flows. Third, take a broader approach to the regulatory approval process rather than just selecting the project with the cheapest capital cost. A broader approach would bring in technologies other than just high-voltage alternating current overhead lines, particularly high-voltage direct current underground cables. Astoundingly, minimal land-based HVDC transmission is proposed in the rollout, in contrast to overseas, where long-distance underground cables are commonplace and in some situations are mandated. In 2002, Australia led the world with the longest HVDC underground cable, Murraylink, which is still in operation. Australia now lags well behind other nations. The stock excuse for rejecting HVDC is that it is too expensive. Yes, it can be dearer to install than HVAC, typically one-and-a-half to three times. But the capital cost gap narrows and can reverse when the broader long-term benefits of underground HVDC are considered, together with the possibility of taking a shorter route or using existing easements and other infrastructure corridors. For example, the Syncline Community HVDC Cable Project proposes running for 100km in the median strip of the Calder Highway in Victoria. Gaining social licence is so much easier and quicker (and cheaper). There are negligible costs for arbitration or compulsory acquisition, lower costs for easements, compensation and vegetation maintenance, and no loss of property values. As one farmer said when told of a proposed overhead line through his property: 'Go underground and I will dig the trench.' Importantly, underground HVDC has far fewer environmental impacts and much lower biodiversity offset costs ($500m for HumeLink). Underground HVDC is more reliable because it is unaffected by above-ground disturbances, such as lightning strikes, severe weather, bushfires, or accidental contact. There are fewer electrical losses (a significant saving over the life of the cable) and no corona buzz, or electric fields, or electrical interference. There is no risk of bushfire ignition and no access restrictions for firefighting. HVDC can provide system strength services in lieu of synchronous condensers that are needed for an HVAC-only network, costing billions. While underground HVDC will not be appropriate in every situation, there will be many instances where it is the better option after the broader long-term benefits are taken into account. For example, by only considering capital cost comparisons, the NSW and federal governments allowed Snowy 2.0 to bulldoze a 140m-wide easement through 9km of pristine subalpine bush in Kosciuszko National Park and Bago State Forest for two side-by-side double-circuit overhead lines. Surely this should have been an irrefutable instance for undergrounding, especially because it would have been in keeping with the rest of the project. These will be the first transmission lines to be constructed in an NSW national park for half a century. As with overseas developments, consideration also needs to be given to the merits of establishing an HVDC backbone across the eastern states before an overhead HVAC-only network is entrenched. Australia has embarked on the biggest extension of the overhead electricity transmission network to serve for the rest of the 21st century, but clearly it is not going well and changes are needed. We need to prioritise renewable generation closer to load centres, upgrading existing transmission lines, making transmission companies accountable for project estimates, instituting a broader regulatory consideration of all costs and benefits, and genuinely considering the advantages of underground cables. Ted Woodley is a former managing director of PowerNet, Gas Net, EnergyAustralia and China Light & Power Systems
