Midday Market Movers

Stocks making the biggest moves at noon: Red Hawk Mining, Dropsuite, tech stocks and more

Tue 28 Jan 25, 1:04pm (AEDT)
Line of yellow trucks operating at an iron ore mine site
Source: iStock

These are the ASX companies and sectors making headlines in afternoon trade.

Red Hawk Mining (ASX: RHK) – Shares in the small cap miner soared 45.7% after the company received a takeover offer from Fortescue Metals. Red Hawk is focused on developing its 100% owned Blacksmith Iron Ore Project in the Pilbara region. The project has a mineral resource estimate of 243 million tonnes at iron ore grades of 59.3%. The key terms of the takeover include:

  • Fortescue to acquire Red Hawk for cash consideration of $1.05 per share, increasing to $1.20 per share if Fortescue acquires a 75% or greater interest in Red Hawk within seven days of the offer

  • The Red Hawk board unanimously recommends that shareholders accept the offer at both the initial and, if applicable, the increased offer price

  • Fortescue and Red Hawk have entered into a bid implementation deed (BID) which governs the terms and conditions of the Offer

Dropsuite (ASX: DSE) – Shares in the cloud software platform surged 29.6% after NinjaOne offered to acquire the company for $5.90 per share in cash. The company's largest shareholder, Topline Capital Management (31.0% ownership) intends to vote in favour of the scheme.

US Masters Residential Property Fund (ASX: URF) – Shares rallied 7.1% after the company provided a strategic review update, which included:

  • Reaffirmed CY25 sales target of $200-225 million

  • Review of US business structure to ensure repatriations of net proceeds from the sales program are undertaken in the most tax efficient manner

Sigma Healthcare (ASX: SIG) – Shares rallied 7.7% after the company provided a trading update for the combined Chemist Warehouse Group. The key numbers for 1H25 include:

  • Total Chemist Warehouse retail network sales up 13% to $5.15 billion

  • Total like-for-like network sales growth of 10.3%

  • Group EBIT up 35% to $437.9 million

  • Group EBIT margin up 400 bps to 22.3%

  • The Chemist Warehouse retail network added 36 new stores, bringing the total to 658

Monadelphous Group (ASX: MND) – Shares rallied 3.8% after Macquarie upgraded the stock from Neutral to Outperform and raised their target price to $15.93 (previously $14.80). Last Friday, Monadelphous announced preliminary 1H25 earnings, with expectations to deliver net profit between $40-43 million compared to market expectations of $33 million. This outperformance was primarily attributed to $7 million in non-operating items

Aristocrat Leisure (ASX: ALL) – Shares gained 2.5% after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock from Neutral to Buy, with a $78.00 target price. "Our positive view is predicated on our preference for high quality companies that have a track record of delivering strong and certain earnings growth," the report said.

Nuix (ASX: NXL) – Shares tumbled 13% after the company guided to weaker-than-expected 1H25 numbers, including:

  • Annualised contract value up 8-9% to $215-217 million

  • Statutory revenue up 6-8% to $104-106 million

  • Cash EBITDA up 7-26% to $11-13 million

  • Underlying EBITDA down 1-8% to $26-28 million

  • Cash position up 25-29% to $30-31 million

ASX (ASX: ASX) – Shares in the exchange operator dipped 4.5% after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock from Neutral to Underweight, with a $55.05 target price. While the company's earnings outlook is stabilising, the analysts believe its forecasted ~3% annual EPS growth between FY24-27 makes it less compelling than peers. "ASX's capital market peers (CPU and MQG) are on track for mid- to high-single-digit or better EPS growth. Our entire general insurer coverage (five stocks) is on track for double-digit earnings growth in FY25E whilst trading on sub-20x P/Es," the report said.

Viva Energy (ASX: VEA) – Shares dipped 3.3% after the company guided to weaker-than-expected full-year earnings, including:

  • FY24 EBITDA (RC) of "approximately $750 million", which represents a year-on-year increase of 5.3%

  • This reflects solid growth from the commercial and industrial (C&I) segment, offset by challenging conditions in the retail and refining businesses.

  • The EBITDA performance missed consensus expectations of $827 million (9.3% miss)

Bellevue Gold (ASX: BGL) – Shares fell 4.3% after the company's December quarter update included a downgrade to its full-year guidance.

  • Production guidance of 150-165koz vs. prior 165-180koz, representing a downgrade of 8.7% at the midpoint

  • All-in sustaining costs between A$1,900-2,100 an ounce vs. prior A$1,750-1,850, representing an increase of 11.1% at the midpoint

AI and data centre stocks suffered broad-based selling amid the DeepSeek news. Leading the declines were Brainchip (-15.3%), Weebit (-10.4%), Digico Infrastructure REIT (-10.1%), Goodman Group (-7.0%), NextDC (-5.7%), and Megaport (-4.6%).

Uranium sector also faced steep selling after the DeepSeek developments raised concerns about future power consumption in the AI sector. Bannerman Energy (-19.9%), Lotus Resources (-17.6%) and Deep Yellow (-16.4%) are leading the declines.

Written By

Kerry Sun

Content Strategist

Kerry holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Monash University. He is an avid swing trader, focused on technical set ups and breakouts. Outside of writing and trading, Kerry is a big UFC fan, loves poker and training Muay Thai. Connect via LinkedIn or email.

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