In a week marked by global political tremors and a surging gold price, the Australian Securities Exchange has delivered a slate of standout performers with a distinctly geopolitical flavour. As world leaders gather in Davos for a sober World Economic Forum and domestic politics sees the Coalition fraying, investors are flocking to hard assets and strategic resources.
Geopolitical Winds Fuel Market Moves
The backdrop to this week's trading is one of significant uncertainty. Gold is flirting with the magical US$5000 per ounce mark, effectively doubling in price in little over a year. This surge is driven by a perfect storm of geopolitical tensions, including threats of fresh conflict in Iran and a visibly weakening US dollar.
Meanwhile, the long-standing Coalition in Australian politics appears to be splitting, with Nationals leader David Littleproud announcing a very public break-up over the Liberals' support for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's new hate speech laws. This political instability, coupled with rising support for One Nation, threatens to reshape the nation's two-party system.
Against this volatile landscape, the ASX is paying rapt attention to companies involved in gold and critical minerals. The following runners have caught the tailwind from this macro madness, delivering impressive gains for investors.
Australian Strategic Materials Ltd (ASX: ASM)
Up 164% (71.5c – 188.5c)
Taking out top honours as the Bulls N' Bears Runner of the Week is critical minerals player Australian Strategic Materials. The company's shares skyrocketed after it received a $450 million takeover bid from NYSE-listed heavyweight Energy Fuels Inc.
Under the proposed scheme, ASM shareholders would receive 0.053 Energy Fuels shares for each ASM share, valuing ASM at $1.90 per share. The deal also includes an unfranked 13c special dividend. The ASM board has flagged its support, including non-executive chair Ian Gandel who holds about 13.6 per cent of the register.
Energy Fuels is a Denver-based critical minerals group with exposure across uranium, rare earths and heavy mineral sands. The tie-up creates a near-term, Western-aligned "mine-to-metal and alloy" supply chain spanning both light and heavy rare earths.
Being US-based, Energy Fuels is well positioned to tap into growing government funding and incentives, with the deal neatly aligned to the US–Australia Critical Minerals Framework. Several materials caught in China's recent export curbs are already available, or planned, via ASM's alternative supply chain from its Dubbo project in New South Wales.
The company has been assessing lower-capex, faster-to-market options to recover light neodymium-praseodymium and heavy dysprosium-terbium rare earths from Dubbo, which could now be easily funded thanks to substantial US government grants.
Osteopore Ltd (ASX: OSX)
Up 150% (1.2c – 3c)
Sneaking into the runners for the second consecutive week and taking out silver is Osteopore Limited, which has struck another significant deal for its innovative bone growth technology, this time in Hong Kong.
The company's fast-growing orthopaedics arm is expanding into Hong Kong after inking a new distribution agreement with local outfit MontsMed. This gives Osteopore another notch in its broader Asia-Pacific expansion strategy.
Initially, the company plans to focus on orthopaedic trauma reconstruction, which it believes offers the most immediate and practical use case for its devices. Under the exclusive three-year agreement, MontsMed will be appointed Osteopore's Hong Kong distributor for orthopaedic products.
At the heart of Osteopore's story is its medical technology: 3D-printed, bioresorbable implants that act as scaffolds for natural bone regrowth. These implants gradually dissolve after surgery, leaving healthy bone behind instead of permanent hardware.
The ongoing distribution deals will help Osteopore access China's immense dental bone graft and membrane market, already valued at over US$200 million and tipped for continued strong growth this decade. By partnering with established local players, Osteopore appears to have neatly dodged many regulatory and market-entry hurdles as its Asian expansion accelerates.
Olympio Metals Ltd (ASX: OLY)
Up 124% (5.8c – 13c)
Taking home Bulls N' Bears bronze is high-grade gold story Olympio Metals, which delivered more than 100 significant gold intercepts at its Bousquet gold project along the legendary Cadillac Break in Canada.
The standout numbers from the drilling included 6.4 metres at 6.54 grams per tonne gold from 183 metres, 7.9 metres at 6.2 grams per tonne from 138 metres, and a 1.5 metre hit running a whopping 54.2 grams per tonne from 235.5 metres at its Paquin prospect.
A market with a renewed lust for gold gobbled up the news, pushing Olympio's shares up as much as 124 per cent on Tuesday to 13 cents on massive turnover of 64 million shares – its busiest trading day in more than a year.
The Cadillac Break is a major regional-scale fault structure in North America, stretching more than 300 kilometres and famous for hosting numerous massive gold deposits comprising a total historical resource of more than 110 million ounces.
Bousquet commands a 10-kilometre stretch of the Cadillac Break just 15 kilometres west of the Bousquet Mining Camp, where heavyweights such as Agnico Eagle's 15-million-ounce La Ronde and Iamgold's 2.4-million-ounce Westwood reside. It wouldn't take too many significant hits in that part of the world for Olympio to truly set the gold market alight.
Riversgold Ltd (ASX: RGL)
Up 109% (1.1c – 2.3c)
Rounding out this week's runners is near-term gold producer Riversgold Limited, which unveiled shallow high-grade gold hits from its Kalgoorlie project, accompanied by a recent strategic $2.15 million capital raising at 1 cent per share.
The company struck high-grade gold in 21 holes at its Northern Zone gold development in Western Australia. Drilling intersected the mineralised host porphyry across the north-east, west and east zones, expanding the footprint and lending further weight to the company's broader gold model.
Best intercepts included 8 metres at 5.81 grams per tonne gold from 46 metres, 7 metres at 3.48 grams per tonne from 48 metres, and 5 metres at 3.13 grams per tonne from 41 metres. Riversgold says modelling points to a 600-metre-wide zone of shallow oxide mineralisation sitting above the Northern Zone porphyry system.
The good news kept coming with Kalgoorlie development partner MEGA Resources tipping in $1 million via a placement for 100 million shares. Under an agreement signed in September, MEGA will fund the project and provide geological, engineering, project management, mining and haulage services, with profits split 50:50.
MEGA will also recycle 10 per cent of its monthly proceeds into expansion-grade control and step-out drilling. Riversgold says it will continue refining its understanding of the Kalgoorlie project ahead of a maiden resource estimate, with MEGA already factoring the latest data into mine planning for a first-half 2026 start.
As geopolitical uncertainty continues to drive market sentiment, these ASX runners demonstrate how gold and critical minerals are capturing investor attention in a world rediscovering the value of hard assets.
