News highs and lows: Pro Medicus, Fortescue and Inghams hit fresh 52-week highs

Welcome back to the 52-week Series – A recap of ASX 200 stocks marking yearly highs and lows in the past week.

52-Week Highs and Lows by Sector

The ASX 200 has rebounded around 2.8% from its late-October low, indicating a recovery from oversold levels. However, this doesn't mean that we're out of the woods just yet.

The recent bounce has lifted sectors that were previously sold off heavily. For instance, 17 ASX 200 Real Estate stocks bounced back after hitting 52-week lows two weeks ago. However, this recovery has been one-sided, with very few stocks reaching new 52-week highs.

• Materials: 1 High, 5 Lows

• Staples: 1 High, 2 Lows

• Healthcare: 1 High, 1 Low

• No new lows or highs for Real Estate, Financials, Industrials, Discretionary, Technology, Utilities or Energy sectors

Stocks at 52-Week Highs

A brief recap of those hitting fresh 52-week highs:

• Pro Medicus: A steady stream of deals for imaging software company ($140m contract in September, $16m contract in October and $20m contract in November).

• Inghams: On 31 October, the company said expects 1H24 underlying net profit to come in at $71 million vs. analyst expectations of $42.9 million. The stock rallied almost 20% in the 6-7 session after the announcement.

• Fortescue: Iron ore prices are around 27% since mid-August and trading near an 8-month high of US$127.55 a tonne.

Stocks at 52-Week Lows

A few interesting tidbits for the above stocks:

• Lithium: Lithium prices have continued to trend lower amid bearish sentiment, thin demand and consumer caution, according to Fastmarkets. "There’s basically no demand for spot lithium hydroxide due to the sluggish nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) battery sector in China. With no demand, it’s hard to strike any deals regardless of how competitive the prices are,” a Chinese lithium trader said.

• Endeavour Group: Endeavour's first quarter update noted 1.9% sales growth to $3.1 billion. The company said sales slowed in the quarter due to decreased items per basket, resulting in negative like-for-like sales growth for the first time.

• Chalice Mining: Palladium spot prices undercut the key US$1,000 an ounce level last week for the first time since 2018. Chalice's Gonneville Scoping Study assumed long-term prices of US$2,000 an ounce. Prices only need to double from here to match the study's economic assumptions.