Top 10 at 11: ASX climbs as trade deal progress soothes global markets

Assurances of trade deal progress with India and Japan boosted markets overnight, offering the ASX breathing room to make gains today.

Global markets are taking a deep breath and hoping for good news. Pic: Getty Images

Morning, and welcome to Stockhead’s Top 10 (at 11… ish), highlighting the movers and shakers on the ASX in early-doors trading.

With the market opening at 10am sharp eastern time, the data is taken at 10:15, once trading kicks off in earnest.

In brief, this is what the markets have been up to this morning.

Global markets rise on trade deal talks

Assurances from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the US is making progress on trade deals with both Japan and India offered investors a window to make cautious gains on global markets today.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also signalled President Trump would sign an order offering relief to US automakers from his new 25% vehicle tariffs to allow them to build domestic supply chains.

That wasn’t enough to stop General Motors from falling 0.6%, after the automaker walked back its annual forecast.

The Dow lifted by 0.8%, the S&P500 by 0.6% and the Nasdaq by 0.6%.

Aerospace and defence stocks lifted the Euro markets, benefiting from a huge ramp-up in defence spending from a raft of European Union countries in direct response to the Trump Administration's foreign policy rhetoric.

The FTSE300 gained 0.4% and the UK FTSE100 0.6%.

Taking a look at the ASX, the signs are certainly positive in the first hour of trading, notching a 0.35% gain.

Info Tech is leading the charge once again (+1.13%), as profit taking in the Utilities (-0.91%) and Energy (-0.40%) sectors weigh on those markets after outsized performances yesterday.

The ASX200 Banks index is also posting gains this morning, up 0.72% at time of writing.

Now, onto our top 10 small cap winners (and laggards) for the morning…

WINNERS

Code	Description	Last	%	Volume	MktCap
AZL	Arizona Lithium Ltd	0.007	40%	1099026	$22,809,073
JLL	Jindalee Lithium Ltd	0.53	29%	153583	$30,172,658
WOA	Wide Open Agricultur	0.034	26%	27026359	$14,409,538
CYQ	Cycliq Group Ltd	0.0025	25%	249999	$921,033
ERL	Empire Resources	0.005	25%	500000	$5,935,653
OVT	Ovanti Limited	0.005	25%	4047687	$10,806,191
TEM	Tempest Minerals	0.005	25%	55324	$2,538,119
BMR	Ballymore Resources	0.12	20%	182966	$17,673,059
TMX	Terrain Minerals	0.003	20%	1000000	$5,008,892
ALB	Albion Resources	0.055	20%	728650	$6,068,933

Making news this morning…

Arizona Lithium (ASX:AZL) has revealed its commercial development plans, which include building potentially the first North American lithium brine production and Koch commercial-scale direct lithium extraction facility at the Prairie project in Saskatchewan, Canada.

“The recognition of the importance of North American lithium brine projects in an established oil and gas region, has only just commenced,” Arizona Lithium managing director Paul Lloyd said.

“AZL will be a significant part of this rapidly developing segment of the lithium industry by implementing innovative Direct Lithium Extraction technology (DLE) to produce a very high quality product at a very low operating cost.”

An offtake and distribution agreement with Univar Solutions China will allow Wide Open Agriculture (ASX:WOA) to begin sales of its functional lupin protein products in the People’s Republic of China. Univar is the second-largest chemical and ingredient distributor globally, having notched $11.5b in sales in 2023.

LAGGARDS

Code	Name	Price	% Change	Volume	Market Cap
ICU	Investor Centre Ltd	0.001	-50%	9509	$609,023
PRX	Prodigy Gold NL	0.001	-50%	4000	$6,350,111
EEL	Enrg Elements Ltd	0.001	-33%	6454216	$4,880,668
WEL	Winchester Energy	0.001	-33%	100000	$2,044,528
3DP	Pointerra Limited	0.061	-27%	6420527	$66,821,374
88E	88 Energy Ltd	0.0015	-25%	1909621	$57,867,624
CT1	Constellation Tech	0.0015	-25%	1000000	$2,949,467
M2R	Miramar	0.003	-25%	5000012	$3,987,293
QXR	Qx Resources Limited	0.003	-25%	1560322	$5,241,315
RFA	Rare Foods Australia	0.006	-25%	361486	$2,175,866

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

Originally published as Top 10 at 11: ASX climbs as trade deal progress soothes global markets