Weekend Wrap: A 97% selloff (and 400% intraday rally) all in one session

Hi there!

I almost feel "cautiously optimistic" after Friday, when the ASX 200 rallied 1.85% to a six-week high. Though if there's one thing we can bet on, it's more volatility. This was arguably one of the most unpredictable and wild weeks in memory: unloved sectors like Staples, Discretionary and Healthcare rallied 7-8%, miners went from falling off a cliff to bouncing sharply on Friday, and Tech stocks took a breather.

Let's dive in.

Bears jumped 12.3 percentage points to 49.9% last week, making it the third most gloomy week since the survey started last May, and the 7th consecutive net-bearish week.

Over the next three months, do you expect the Australian stock market to be:

• Bullish

• Neutral

• Bearish

There’s a real disconnect between physical energy markets and energy prices. One is extremely tight, while the other has featured three months of flattish oil prices.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas explains why. 

1. China, China and China: Beijing slashed tanker crude imports nearly 40% to a 10-year low (~6.7m b/d), removing demand equivalent to Germany and France combined and acting as the market's biggest relief valve.

2. Demand destruction: Refinery processing fell ~5m b/d, with petrochemical demand destruction likely accounting for 3-4m b/d as Asian consumers cut back or switched to coal and firewood.

3. Oil is still leaving Hormuz: Despite the 100-day closure, bypass pipelines move ~5m b/d and beacon-off tankers hugging the Omani coast shuttle another ~2m b/d out through the strait.

4. The original oversupply: The market was already oversupplied by 3-4m b/d before the war thanks to US shale and OPEC+ hikes, providing a built-in cushion.

5. Release, baby, release: The IEA's record 400m-barrel release, announced just two weeks into the war, is now hitting the market at ~2.5m b/d, though reserves are running low.

6. The big refinery flex: Modern cokers let refineries process more crude varieties and tilt output toward what's needed, pushing US jet fuel yield to a record ~13%.

7. The art of jawboning: Trump warned ~40 times in 100 days that a deal was imminent, repeatedly stopping out bullish traders as prices dropped up to 10% on his posts.

8. Buy insurance, not oil: A now-liquid options market lets traders hedge conflict risk via calls (volumes up from 25k to 200k+ lots daily) instead of buying futures and fuelling a price spiral.

9. The thinning fog of war: Cheap commercial satellite imagery and tanker tracking mean the market now trades more on real information and less on speculation.

10. Higher prices, higher production: Output is booming across the Americas, with Brazil up 20% y/y to a record and Guyana, US, Canada, Venezuela and even China all adding barrels.

Gold has turned incredibly volatile in recent months. In fact, it barely feels like gold anymore. It's tracking more closely with risk assets and the S&P 500, and increasingly moving inversely to oil. This week featured a 4.5% dip on Wednesday, followed by a 3.5% bounce on Thursday.

That got me thinking – how common is a move, say 3% down today and 3% up tomorrow?

The answer: Very, very uncommon.

This has happened just four times since 1998:

• 21 April 2006

• 3 February 2026

• 6 February 2026

• 11 June 2026 (the current one)

I usually have something insightful but the data set is tiny and lopsided. So yeah, nothing much to see here!

Elanor Investors Group opened 97.5% lower on Thursday, after a brutal recapitalisation wiped out most of its existing equity value.

The stock had been halted since August 2024 as it tried to fix a crippled balance sheet (operating losses, gearing as high as ~80%, high-cost short-term bridging finance). Funds under management halved to $2.7 billion after the Challenger Life mandate unwound and the group divested a string of retail, commercial and hotel assets.

A $125 million Rockworth-led recapitalisation (finalised 17 April 2026) reset the equity but wiped out most existing securityholder value.

But here's where it gets spicy.

Elanor had a proforma NTA of 30 cps, against Wednesday's open of just 2 cents. And yes, that 30 cps figure is post-recapitalisation, and yes, that's a 93% discount to NTA.

The dramatic open likely reflected a wave of holders who simply wanted out at any price. But just over an hour later, the stock had rallied to 10 cents, up 400% from the open. Even then, it's still a massive discount to NTA.

Instead of going to uni, I should've just pivoted to cafeteria staff at high-growth AI startups