Stocks making the biggest moves at noon: Uranium, Gold Miners, Paladin Energy and more

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

Uranium stocks – Paladin Energy (ASX: PDN) is leading the sector to the downside after its quarterly report flagged "some short-term operational challenges were encountered which impacted ore feed, recovery rates and production volumes." For the September quarter, Paladin reported operating cash outflows of $12.4 million as production costs ($27.4 million) offset revenues ($24.7 million). The company said the team has commenced the implementation of operational improvements aimed at addressing these issues. However, the news sent Paladin shares spiraling 20% lower. This appears to be weighing on the broader uranium sector, with names like Boss Energy, Bannerman Energy, Aura Energy and Lotus Resources all down around 4-5%.

Gold miners – Gold prices have started the week on a weaker note, down 0.5% to US$2,731 an ounce. This has driven a pullback among most ASX-listed gold miners, including Northern Star (-4.2%), Alkane Resources (-3.7%), Perseus Mining (-3.2%) and more.

Li–S Energy (ASX: LIS) – Shares in the battery cells developer soared 45% after announcing that its new 10Ah semi-solid-state cells have achieved an energy density of 498Wh/kg on first discharge, and 456Wh/kg after cycling. This high energy density makes the light batteries particularly suitable for drones and other small aircraft.

Platinum Asset Management (ASX: PTM) – Shares in the global equities investing house rallied 2.7% after the company is understood to have fielded competing proposals, according to the Financial Review.

SiteMinder (ASX: SDR) – Shares rose 2.3% after its AGM issued a Q1 trading update, which noted "net property additions are tracking ahead of last year with continued focus on larger properties which present attractive long-term revenue opportunities for the company." SiteMinder is preparing to launch several new products, including its Smart Platform, Channels Plus and Dynamic Revenue Plus. The AGM reaffirmed expectations of being underlying EBITDA profitable and underlying free cash flow positive in FY25 as well as medium-term organic revenue growth of 30%.

Whitehaven Coal (ASX: WHC) – The coal miner has been the recipient of several broker upgrades, including Citi, Morgan Stanley and Macquarie. Citi analysts said September quarter saleable coal production of 7.1 million tonnes was a 3% beat while costs were towards the lower end of guidance. The analysts upgraded their earnings forecasts by 4-7% across FY25-27 and lifted their target price from $7.60 to $8.00. Likewise, Macquarie analysts raised their target by 3% to $7.55. "Allowing for lagged pricing, realisations looked stable, and with ROM production strong, saleable production (and sales) should recover. We see upside with met-coal prices seasonally low," the analyst said.

Stocks selling off on no news include – Appen (-4.2%), Southern Cross Electrical Engineering (-3.9%), CogState (-3.6%), Catapult Group (-2.7%) and Aussie Broadband (-2.4%)