ASX 200 stocks hitting fresh 52-week highs and lows – Week 45
It’s carnage for ASX miners, with lithium and iron ore names hitting fresh 52-week lows as defensives push to new highs.
Source: Shutterstock
Welcome back to the 52-Week Series, where we recap the S&P/ASX 200 stocks that hit fresh yearly highs and lows last week. Tracking this data point helps identify emerging trends across various stocks and sectors.
When clusters of stocks within a sector reach new highs or lows, it often points to meaningful underlying drivers such as shifting commodity prices, changing demand patterns (such as AI, pivots into defensive sectors, consumer weakness etc), or companies beating/missing earnings expectations.
52-Week highs and lows by sector
Financials: 6 Highs, 2 Lows
Health Care: 3 Highs, 0 Lows
Industrials: 1 High, 2 Lows
Technology: 1 High, 1 Low
Utilities: 1 High, 0 Lows
Staples: 1 High, 0 Lows
Materials: 0 Highs, 15 Lows
Discretionary: 0 Highs, 1 Low
Energy: 0 Highs, 1 Low
Real Estate: 0 Highs, 1 Low
Telecommunications: 0 Highs, 1 Low
What Does the Data Tell Us?
Defensives keep climbing. The 52-week highs list has been relatively thin since late August, but it’s started to fill out again in recent weeks as investors rotate into defensive pockets of the market. Financials account for six of the names, with three insurers, ANZ (the best performer of the Big Four), Challenger (which received a takeover offer last month) and ASX, a recovery play. Healthcare is the other cluster, featuring Ramsay Health Care and Ansell, both of which surged on the day of their FY26 results and kept trending higher since. Data#3 is the lone growth name, rallying off the back of a 1H27 earnings upgrade on 10 October. Clearly, the market is on the defensive right now, and outside of that, big earnings/guidance surprises are the only other pocket of strength.
Miners in the gutter. Oh how the mighty have fallen. The S&P/ASX 200 bounced 4.0% last week but is still 16.4% below its 25 August record high, and the bounce hid plenty of carnage under the hood. Chinese lithium carbonate closed at 88,500 yuan a tonne last Friday, down 58% from its mid-May high of 209,880 yuan. That’s dragged a broad basket of lithium stocks to fresh yearly lows, from bellwether PLS Group through to more speculative names like Vulcan Energy and Elevra Lithium. Iron ore is stuck around US$90 a tonne, which leaves little hope of a bounce for Champion Iron or Fortescue. The wobble in the AI trade is also flowing through to precious and industrial metals. The Materials index rose last week but has started this week down 1.3%. Miners keep piling onto the 52-week lows list, and that’s a warning sign for a sector that was carrying the market not long ago.
The rest doesn’t look that bad. The damage looks mostly confined to miners. Consumer Discretionary (XDJ), which fell about 16.5% between 6 August and 24 September, is now 8% off its lows. Real Estate (XRE) has also climbed about 7% from its early October lows.
ASX 200 stocks at 52-week highs
Ticker | Company | Close | Sector | 1 Week | 1 Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ramsay Health Care | $55.60 | Health Care | 1.5% | 77.1% | |
Data#3 | $14.76 | Technology | 11.2% | 63.6% | |
Woolworths Group | $40.22 | Staples | -3.7% | 43.3% | |
QBE Insurance | $26.18 | Financials | -1.2% | 34.4% | |
Challenger | $12.02 | Financials | 0.8% | 31.2% | |
Ansell | $45.44 | Health Care | -1.8% | 26.2% | |
APA Group | $11.27 | Utilities | -2.2% | 23.6% | |
Cleanaway Waste | $3.00 | Industrials | 0.3% | 17.7% | |
ASX | $66.12 | Financials | 0.1% | 17.3% | |
CSL | $200.73 | Health Care | 2.1% | 13.4% | |
Insurance Australia Group | $8.80 | Financials | -1.4% | 13.4% | |
ANZ Group | $40.81 | Financials | 1.9% | 10.8% | |
Treasury Wine Estates | $6.17 | Staples | 6.2% | 5.8% | |
Suncorp Group | $19.65 | Financials | -3.6% | 2.7% | |
Coles Group | $21.66 | Staples | -11.8% | -0.6% |
S&P/ASX 200 stocks and sectors that hit a 52-week high last week, sorted by sectors and one-year returns. Data as at Friday, 30 October 2026.
ASX 200 Materials stocks at 52-week lows
Ticker | Company | Close | Sector | 1 Week | 1 Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vulcan Energy | $1.15 | Materials | 11.1% | -79.1% | |
Iperionx | $2.15 | Materials | 21.1% | -65.8% | |
Champion Iron | $1.92 | Materials | -13.4% | -65.4% | |
Liontown | $0.62 | Materials | -3.1% | -45.1% | |
Catalyst Metals | $3.92 | Materials | -17.5% | -43.1% | |
Fortescue | $14.27 | Materials | 0.0% | -30.4% | |
Elevra Lithium | $3.19 | Materials | -6.2% | -30.2% | |
Firefly Metals | $1.36 | Materials | 10.6% | -27.5% | |
PLS Group | $2.64 | Materials | 0.8% | -14.3% | |
Lynas Rare Earths | $12.10 | Materials | 13.0% | -12.6% | |
Nickel Industries | $0.62 | Materials | -4.6% | -11.4% | |
Mineral Resources | $44.09 | Materials | 4.1% | -4.2% | |
IGO | $4.98 | Materials | 4.4% | -4.1% | |
Imdex | $3.27 | Materials | 4.5% | -3.3% | |
Alcoa Corporation | $55.50 | Materials | 2.9% | -2.7% |
S&P/ASX 200 Materials constituents hat hit a 52-week low last week, sorted by one-year returns. Data as at Friday, 30 October 2026.
Other ASX 200 stocks and sectors at 52-week lows
Ticker | Company | Close | Sector | 1 Week | 1 Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Droneshield | $1.37 | Industrials | -4.5% | -67.1% | |
Silex Systems | $3.33 | Industrials | 3.4% | -64.5% | |
Lendlease | $2.29 | Real Estate | -4.6% | -58.4% | |
Deep Yellow | $0.72 | Energy | 5.9% | -56.8% | |
Zip | $1.79 | Financials | 22.6% | -53.8% | |
Weebit Nano | $2.37 | Technology | 0.0% | -48.6% | |
Harvey Norman | $4.13 | Discretionary | -1.0% | -43.4% | |
Chorus | $6.50 | Telecommunications | -2.0% | -21.0% | |
Barrenjoey Group | $7.79 | Financials | 6.1% | -18.6% |
S&P/ASX 200 stocks and sectors that hit a 52-week low last week, sorted by sectors and one-year returns. Data as at Friday, 30 October 2026.
