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The region’s governments are becoming increasingly aware of the need to shore up future supplies of a wide range of commodities and are working to attract more activity.

The region has been perhaps best recognised for lithium and the ‘Lithium Triangle’ spanning Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. However, with lower lithium pricing, the focus has shifted to include materials including gold, silver, copper, mineral sands, phosphate, uranium, and more.

Because many jurisdictions have been under-explored in Latin America, ASX-listed companies are finding projects of a quality that’s now very difficult to secure in Australia.

What’s also pleasing those companies working in the region is that operational costs, such as power and labour, are dramatically cheaper. They are finding that approval processes are moving faster.

In this webinar, you’ll hear about the risks and the potential rewards – with facts and figures for investors to consider.

We ask company leaders what attracted them to Latin American projects, we discuss the potential impacts of Donald Trump’s tariffs, and we look at their experiences in developing a variety of projects.

Our guests include experts and company leaders:

Join the discussion: See what’s trending right now on Australia’s largest stock forum and be part of the conversations that move the markets.

The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

The news proves wrong critics of the company which have, full disclosure, included myself – more than once. While its flagship production well is producing less than 2,000bpd; and while brent crude has dipped to the US$70/bbl mark, it’s still a success story for a little Aussie battler – and everybody loves an underdog.

Elsewhere, all eyes were on the US Harris-Trump debate this week which isn’t going to decide the election either way and where the “winner,” apparently, depends on who you support. Trump, in typical fashion, came out with a real banger: immigrants are crossing the border into the US and eating the family pets of good, god-fearing, red-blooded Americans. 

That went down about how you’d expect, admittedly, it was the highlight of an otherwise uninspiring television event. (ABC host David Muir was also, at times, particularly amusing.) 

But in the world of finance and markets, all eyes ended up on the other superpower (that isn’t China) – Russia. President Putin, perhaps jealous of all the attention not being paid to him, made a televised address where he basically threatened to ban exports of nickel, uranium, and other metals onto world markets. He also threatened all-out-war, again.

Markets cared more about the commodity implications. Outside of the western allied countries, Russia exports an awful lot. The implications were enough to send all kinds of commodities higher; coupled with Chinese CATL’s apparent plans to shut down two lithium mines, the ASX materials sector had a ripper week, up around +4% WoW. 

Another thing putting wind in the ASX’s sails: acceptably tame US inflation has solidified expectations of a rate cut from the US Fed later this month, the ECB also cut rates, blah blah blah. I found something from left of field in markets this week far more interesting.

A well-known quant chief over in The States, Cliff Asness, has released a heavily opinionated and perhaps overwrought paper on the impacts social media has had on stock markets over the last thirty years. While it takes him about 12 pages to start making a point – think of it more as an ambling blog post, much like what you’re reading now – he points towards a deterioration of efficiency in stock markets over relatively recent history and it’s his ultimate belief stock markets have allowed misinformation to thrive. 

Information has always been available, he reckons, but says these days, people aren’t as good at making common sense conclusions based on news. That means investors can expect bigger returns in an uncertain future, but less success with stock-picking. 

The general thrust of his paper, that social media is causing a breakdown of consensus reality, feels fairly uncontroversial to me. Unfortunately, there may need to be more rigorous evidence collection and less opining for that to be proven. But it’s definitely worth, at least, an attempted read.

Check out his “Less-Efficient Market Hypothesis.” Just don’t tell any HotCopper power users.