Winners and Losers: SA stocks tumble as tariff impact felt
South Australian listed companies were not immune to the stock market shock that rippled across the Australian bourse last week.
Just 13 of the 65 companies tracked by this column enjoyed gains last week amid a bloodbath on the stock exchange that saw the ASX200 close 3.94 per cent down.
The declines were in response to US President Donald Trump’s worse-than-expected ‘reciprocal’ tariff package.
Australia was hit with a blanket 10 per cent tariff on exports to the United States, which spooked beef producers. Locally, the state’s Trade & Investment Minister Joe Szakacs said exporters of defence, beef, lamb and minerals would be particularly hard hit.
On the Australian Stock Exchange, $97 billion was wiped from its top 500 stocks in just two days – Thursday and Friday.
It was worse in the United States, with US$2.4 trillion wiped from the S&P500 last Thursday alone, leading JP Morgan to lift global recession expectations to 60 per cent from 40 per cent.
In South Australia, Vintage Energy suffered the biggest decline of 25 per cent. Tech company Spacetalk fell by more than 21 per cent, as did Petratherm. Amplitute Energy and Beach Energy rounded out the Losers.
There was virtually no company news among the week’s Winners or Losers, as companies holed up and weathered the global economic chaos.
Oil and gas companies headed up the Losers as crude oil prices cracked under global recession fears alongside news that OPEC had unexpectedly accelerated the unwinding of production cuts (bringing more supply onto the market).
Jade Gas stood alone as a winner in the oil and gas space, announcing earlier in the week that it was commencing drilling of a second production well at its project in Mongolia.
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Orbminco led the Winners with a 50 per cent rise over the week, but the company remains down 64 per cent on the year. The company is a gold explorer, and the spot price of gold spiked after Trump released details on his tariffs.
Koonenberry Gold also rose by 20 per cent, while renewable energy firm 1414 Degrees and Anatara Lifesciences rounded out the Winners.
The full list of Winners and Losers for the week ended 4 April:
