Commodity prices have split three ways since early 2025. Oil and coal rose after the war in the Middle East cut Gulf supply. Copper and gold rose on demand and investment, although gold has fallen back since February 2026. Iron ore barely moved. This Samso Insight collects what nine institutions published on supply and demand this year, as forecasts or reported data, and sets each view against the price data that followed. The International Energy Agency, OPEC and the US Energy Information Administration cover oil. The International Copper Study Group covers copper and the World Gold Council covers gold. The World Bank covers the whole commodity complex and the IMF covers the world economy, and the Australian Government's Resources and Energy Quarterly covers what it all means for Australian exports. Each view is set against the price data published since. Where two forecasters disagree, both are shown. Where a forecast has been overtaken by events, the piece says so and gives the date it was made. WHAT THIS PIECE COVERS 1.00 THE NINE INSTITUTIONS AND WHAT A BALANCE IS Who the nine institutions are, and what a supply and demand balance is. 2.00 THE SCOREBOARD SINCE JANUARY 2025 Six commodity prices on one chart, and the table behind it. 3.00 OIL, THE FORECASTERS DISAGREE ON DEMAND The IEA sees demand falling in 2026 and OPEC sees it growing. 4.00 COPPER, A SURPLUS FORECAST AND A RECORD PRICE Why a surplus forecast and a record price can both stand. 5.00 IRON ORE, SIMANDOU AND CHINESE STEEL New supply from Guinea against lower Chinese steel output. 6.00 GOLD, CENTRAL BANKS AGAINST INTEREST RATES Central bank buying rose while the price fell back. 7.00 COAL AND GAS, THE SWITCH BACK TO COAL How a gas shortage lifted demand for coal. 8.00 LITHIUM, DEMAND FROM STORAGE AND NO FREE PRICE SERIES Battery demand growth, and why no price is quoted. 9.00 WHERE THE FORECASTS MOVED, AND THE EFFECTS ON AUSTRALIAN PRODUCERS Four published forecasts against later data, and three effects on Australian producers. 10.00 SAMSO TAKE Samso's view on where prices go from here. A note on the vocabulary and the sources. Every technical term is explained where it first appears, and the recurring terms are collected in a vocabulary box at the back, above the references. Each source carries an identifier, [R1] to [R21]. The same identifier appears in the text where that source is used, so each figure can be traced to the document behind it. 1.00 — THE NINE INSTITUTIONS AND WHAT A BALANCE IS Who publishes the forecasts, and how a surplus or deficit is described Commodity prices in 2026 have moved further and faster than several forecasts made before the war in the Middle East allowed for. The IEA describes the war as unresolved, with negotiations between the United States and Iran at an impasse [R1]. Brent crude, the main global oil price benchmark, averaged about US$71 a barrel in February and reached US$138 on 7 April. Copper reached its highest monthly average in the World Bank's records. Gold's monthly average peaked in February and has since fallen back. Iron ore barely moved. A small group of institutions publish supply and demand forecasts or data on a fixed schedule, with their assumptions written down. This piece collects what nine of them published, mostly between April and September 2026, and sets each view against the price data that followed. The nine are the International Energy Agency (IEA), OPEC, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Copper Study Group (ICSG), the World Gold Council, the World Steel Association and the Australian Government's Resources and Energy Quarterly. Most figures come from the institutions' releases and from the price series. The OPEC and ICSG figures come from press reports, because the original releases could not be opened, and the text marks where.

Samso Market Update | Tuesday, 6 October 2026 | Market close 4:30pm AEDT The S&P/ASX 200, the index of the 200 largest listed companies, closed 49.3 points higher on the ASX today, up 0.57% at 8,735.7. The information technology sector fell 2.90% and was the weakest of the 11 sectors. The All Ordinaries, which tracks the 500 largest listed companies, rose 44.3 points or 0.50% to 8,903.5. The S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries, an index of the companies ranked 101 to 300 by size, fell 9.1 points or 0.27% to 3,305.2. Monday's edition is ASX today, Monday 5 October 2026. ASX today: Key Highlights The ASX 200 closed at 8,735.7, up 49.3 points or 0.57%. Its high for the day was 8,753.0 at about 2:05pm AEDT. Nine of the 11 sectors rose. Real estate gained 1.11% and information technology fell 2.90%. More shares fell than rose. Of 1,494 companies that traded, 557 rose, 594 fell and 343 were unchanged. EQ Resources (ASX: EQR) fell 11.39% to A$0.35 on the day it released its September quarter update. Weebit Nano (ASX: WBT) fell 12.98% to A$3.42 and Elsight (ASX: ELS) fell 11.55% to A$4.67. The Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index fell 4.7% to 80.4 in October, according to ABC News. Large companies up, technology and small companies down The ASX 200 opened higher and was up 0.7% at 8,749 at 1:05pm AEDT, according to ABC News. It reached 8,753.0 at about 2:05pm and closed at 8,735.7. ABC News reported that the ASX rose following gains on Wall Street on Monday, when the Nasdaq Composite hit a new record high. It also reported that oil prices fell on Monday on higher crude exports from the Middle East and supply pledges from the G7 group of countries. Real estate was the strongest of the 11 sectors, up 1.11%. Materials, the sector that holds the miners, rose 0.91%. Utilities rose 0.90%, financials rose 0.73% and health care rose 0.63%. BHP Group (ASX: BHP), the largest company on the ASX, rose 1.57% to A$62.86. Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) rose 0.77% to A$152.38. Two sectors fell. Information technology fell 2.90% and consumer staples fell 0.13%. WiseTech Global (ASX: WTC) fell 2.54% to A$31.90 and Xero (ASX: XRO) fell 1.42% to A$55.71. Samso did not find a source that gave a reason for the fall in technology shares. The gains were in the largest companies. Among companies above A$1 billion, 148 rose and 106 fell. Among companies below A$150 million, 269 rose and 332 fell. Two pieces of Australian data came out today. The Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index fell 4.7% to 80.4 points in October, from 84.4 in September, according to ABC News. The index is a monthly survey of households, and a reading below 100 means pessimists outnumber optimists. ANZ job advertisements rose 2.2% in September from August, according to ABC News. There was no Reserve Bank of Australia announcement today. Blue Chips (above A$1 billion) Samso sorts companies into four size bands by market capitalisation at the previous close. Market capitalisation is the value of all of a company's shares. Turnover is the dollar value of shares traded in the day. Virgin Australia Holdings (ASX: VGN) rose 5.17% to A$2.85 on the day it released the notice of its annual general meeting. PYC Therapeutics (ASX: PYC) rose 5.10% to A$2.68 and Metcash (ASX: MTS) rose 4.88% to A$3.01 on turnover of A$17.4 million. HMC Capital (ASX: HMC) rose 4.53% to A$3.00. None of the three made an ASX announcement today. EQ Resources (ASX: EQR) fell 11.39% to A$0.35 on turnover of A$34.8 million. The tungsten producer released an announcement titled "Record Cash Generation on Higher Production" at 10:09am AEDT. It reported cash of A$82.3 million and revenue of A$158.8 million for the September quarter, according to Sharecafe. Samso did not find a source that gave a reason for the fall. Samso covered the company's Nevada processing agreement in Tungsten in September. Elsight (ASX: ELS) fell 11.55% to A$4.67 on turnover of A$13.9 million, with no ASX announcement today. DigiCo Infrastructure REIT (ASX: DGT) fell 6.94% to A$2.28 and PDI Gold (ASX: PDI) fell 6.67% to A$4.62. Megaport (ASX: MP1) fell 5.70% to A$21.01 on turnover of A$31.7 million. None of the three made an ASX announcement today. Mid Caps (A$500 million to A$1 billion) European Lithium (ASX: EUR) rose 5.00% to A$0.42 and Arena REIT (ASX: ARF) rose 4.79% to A$2.08. Neither made an ASX announcement today. Further down the list of gainers, Civmec (ASX: CVL) rose 3.23% to A$1.76 on the day it announced A$220 million in new awards and extensions. Weebit Nano (ASX: WBT) fell 12.98% to A$3.42 on turnover of A$8.8 million. Its only ASX announcement today was a change of auditor. It was the largest fall in the band. Turaco Gold (ASX: TCG) fell 10.87% to A$0.82, with no ASX announcement today. Nuix (ASX: NXL) fell 7.37% to A$1.76. It released its annual report at 4:14pm AEDT, after the close. Small Caps (A$150 million to A$500 million) LGI (ASX: LGI) rose 13.11% to A$2.20 on turnover of A$0.14 million, on the day it announced an agreement to buy 42 megawatts of operating solar generation assets. Gateway Mining (ASX: GML) rose 11.27% to A$0.079 on the day it released an announcement titled "Two Large Scale Gold Anomalies Defined at Glenburgh South". A gold anomaly is an area where sampling shows more gold than the surrounding ground, and it is a target for drilling. Berkeley Energia (ASX: BKY) rose 10.10% to A$0.545 and Gentrack Group (ASX: GTK) rose 9.25% to A$3.19 on turnover of A$2.5 million. Neither made an ASX announcement today. Tanami Gold (ASX: TAM) fell 8.70% to A$0.063, with no ASX announcement today. Advanced Engineered Materials (ASX: AEM) fell 7.58% to A$0.305 on the day it released a notice about shares held in voluntary escrow. Escrow is a period in which a holder has agreed not to sell. Astral Resources (ASX: AAR) fell 5.71% to A$0.165 on the day it announced the sale of its Spargoville nickel rights, a third rights acquisition at its Mandilla project and a proposed issue of securities. Dateline Resources (ASX: DTR) fell 5.71% to A$0.099, with no ASX announcement today. Micro Caps (below A$150 million) Verbrec (ASX: VBC) rose 27.03% to A$0.235 on turnover of A$0.53 million, with no ASX announcement today. Eden Innovations (ASX: EDE) rose 20.37% to A$0.065 on the day it released a United States sales update for the September quarter. Middle Island Resources (ASX: MDI) rose 16.67% to A$0.014 and Lincoln Minerals (ASX: LML) rose 15.38% to A$0.015. Neither made an ASX announcement today. RocketBoots (ASX: ROC) rose 13.95% to A$0.245 on the day it announced its first installations for a multinational retailer. Chilwa Minerals (ASX: CHW) fell 17.58% to A$0.75 on turnover of A$0.08 million. Two substantial holder notices were lodged today. A substantial holder is an investor with 5% or more of a company's shares. Sunshine Metals (ASX: SHN) fell 15.15% to A$0.028 on the day it released an announcement titled "Gold mineralisation footprint extended at Sybil". King River Resources (ASX: KRR) fell 12.82% to A$0.068 and Yandal Resources (ASX: YRL) fell 10.00% to A$0.099. Neither made an ASX announcement today. Shares priced below one cent are left out of this band, because a single price step moves them by 10% or more. Commodities and Currency Prices are as at about 4:31pm AEDT. A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell at a set price on a later date, and the contract month is the month it falls due. Gold futures for December were at US$4,148.10 an ounce, lower than Monday's close. Silver for December was at US$60.73 an ounce. Copper for December was at US$6.643 a pound, up 0.87% from Monday's close. Brent crude for December was at US$100.72 a barrel, up 0.40% from Monday's close of US$100.32. West Texas Intermediate, the US oil benchmark, was at US$89.68 a barrel for November delivery. Iron ore was US$91.25 a tonne at 1:05pm AEDT, down 0.3%, according to ABC News. The Australian dollar was buying approximately 69.7 US cents at 4:40pm AEDT. It was at approximately 69.7 US cents at 8:45am. Samso Concluding Comments The ASX 200 rose 0.57% and nine of the 11 sectors gained. Information technology fell 2.90% and the Small Ordinaries fell 0.27%. Three of the largest falls in the top two bands were EQ Resources, Weebit Nano and Elsight, and Samso did not find a source that gave a reason for any of them. Building approvals for August are due from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday at 11:30am AEDT. General information only. This is not financial advice. Samso Market Update | Tuesday, 6 October 2026 | Pre-market 9:45am AEDT Futures point to a higher open on the ASX today. ASX 200 futures were up 0.3% at 8,750 points at 7:24am AEDT, according to ABC News. A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell at a set price on a later date, and its price shows where traders expect the index to go. The S&P/ASX 200 closed on Monday at 8,686.4, up 4.3 points or 0.05%. The All Ordinaries, which tracks the 500 largest listed companies, rose 0.05% to 8,859.2. The S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries, an index of the companies ranked 101 to 300 by size, fell 0.36% to 3,314.3. The Australian dollar was buying approximately 69.7 US cents at 8:45am AEDT. Monday's edition is ASX today, Monday 5 October 2026. ASX today: Key Highlights ASX 200 futures were up 0.3% at 8,750 points at 7:24am AEDT (ABC News). The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.05% on Monday to 27,477.31, a record high according to Yahoo Finance. The yield on the US 10-year government bond closed at about 5.31%, up about 3 basis points on the day. Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 2.40% on Monday to 69,946.86. Brent crude for December fell 1.89% to US$100.32 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate for November fell 1.99% to US$89.30. Westpac's consumer confidence index for October is due at about 10:30am AEDT, according to ABC News. Wall Street overnight The four main US share indices rose on Monday (FIG. 01). The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.18% to 51,267.90. The S&P 500 gained 0.66% to 7,773.95. The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.05% to 27,477.31, which Yahoo Finance and ABC News reported as a record high. The Russell 2000, an index of smaller US companies, gained 0.50% to 2,847.14. ABC News reported that earnings optimism and lower oil prices offset rising bond yields, and that Nvidia and Microsoft lifted the market. Nvidia rose 2.12% and Microsoft rose 1.5%, according to The Motley Fool. The US 10-year Treasury yield closed at about 5.31%, up about 3 basis points from 5.28% on Friday (FIG. 02). A Treasury is a US government bond. A bond yield is the yearly return from buying a government bond at today's price, and when yields rise, bond prices fall. A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point. Yahoo Finance described the yield as near its highest levels since 2002. The main US data release on Monday was the Institute for Supply Management's services index. It was 54.9 for September, down from 55.4 in August, according to Yahoo Finance. Economists had expected 55.2. The index is a monthly survey of service companies, and a reading above 50 means activity grew. The survey's prices index rose to 74 from 72.6 in August. Japan The Nikkei 225 closed on Monday at 69,946.86, up 1,637.40 points or 2.40%. It had fallen 0.94% on Friday. Trading Economics reported that weaker than expected US jobs data reduced pressure on the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, to raise interest rates further. It said technology and financial shares led the gains. The US dollar was buying approximately 157.86 yen at 8:45am AEDT. London and Europe London's FTSE 100 closed on Monday at 10,497.94, up 0.34%. Germany's DAX gained 0.09% to 25,254.21. France's CAC 40 fell 0.80% to 7,834.10. Currencies The Australian dollar was buying approximately 69.7 US cents at 8:45am AEDT. It was at approximately 69.4 US cents at 4:34pm AEDT on Monday. The US dollar index, which measures the US dollar against six major currencies, closed on Monday at 102.12, up 0.19%. The US dollar was buying approximately 157.86 yen. Commodities Brent crude for December closed on Monday at US$100.32 a barrel, down 1.89% (FIG. 03). The contract month is the month a futures contract falls due. West Texas Intermediate, the US oil benchmark, closed at US$89.30 a barrel for November delivery, down 1.99%. Gold futures for December closed at US$4,167.60 an ounce, up 0.13% (TABLE 01). Silver for December rose 1.63% to US$61.40 an ounce. Copper for December rose 1.28% to US$6.633 a pound. Iron ore was approximately US$91.80 a tonne, according to ABC News. Today's diary About 10:30am AEDT. Westpac consumer confidence index for October, according to ABC News. Samso Concluding Comments The Nasdaq Composite closed at a record on Monday and the US 10-year Treasury yield closed at about 5.31%. ABC News reported that earnings optimism and lower oil prices offset the rise in bond yields. Brent crude fell 1.89% and closed at US$100.32 a barrel. ASX 200 futures indicate a higher open, and the Westpac consumer confidence index is due at about 10:30am AEDT. General information only. This is not financial advice.

The Europa Metals IPO offered shares at 20 cents to raise A$4 million to A$5 million for historical antimony and gold mining ground in Austria. The company says the capital raising has closed. The ASX listing date had not been set at 5 October 2026. The Europa Metals IPO is a planned return to the ASX for a company that left the exchange in 2019. Europa Metals Ltd (proposed ASX: EUZ) offered shares at 20 cents to raise A$4 million to A$5 million. The money is mainly to explore five antimony and gold project areas in Austria that the company is acquiring [R1]. The company said on 29 September 2026 that the capital raising had closed [R5]. The projects have historical mines and grade records but no Mineral Resource, which is a modern estimate of tonnes and grade. This is Samso’s first piece on the company. THE SOURCE DOCUMENT Europa Metals Ltd, Prospectus dated 27 July 2026 and lodged with ASIC on that date. It runs to 238 pages in the PDF and includes an Independent Technical Report, an Independent Legal Report and an Independent Limited Assurance Report. It is available at europametals.com. The Europa Metals IPO Offer The prospectus is the legal document a company must issue before selling shares to the public. This one was lodged with ASIC, the corporate regulator, on 27 July 2026 [R1]. It offered 20,000,000 shares at A$0.20 to raise A$4,000,000 (TABLE 01). The company could accept another 5,000,000 shares for a further A$1,000,000. Every four shares came with one attaching option. An option is a right to buy a share later at a set price, here A$0.30 within three years. Europa is already listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). The prospectus says the company will seek to leave the JSE after it lists on the ASX [R1]. The notice of meeting of 13 August 2026, the document sent to shareholders before their vote, says the ASX will become the primary listing and the JSE will be kept as a secondary listing [R3]. Samso reports both statements as published. Shareholders approved a 12-for-1 consolidation on 8 September 2026, which means 12 existing shares become one [R4]. That leaves 8,514,316 existing shares [R1]. The EUZ IPO timetable in the prospectus set the offer to close on 21 August 2026 and pointed to ASX trading on 1 October 2026. The prospectus called its timetable indicative [R1]. The notice of meeting showed the public offer closing on 28 August 2026, in a timetable it also called indicative [R3]. All eight resolutions at the 8 September meeting were passed [R4]. The company issued updated dates on 23 September 2026 [R5]. On 29 September 2026 the company said the capital raising had closed and that it was awaiting an admission letter from the ASX, which is the exchange’s letter confirming admission and any conditions attached. It said there had been a delay in the listing process and that the dates previously announced no longer applied [R5]. The ASX upcoming floats page showed the listing date as “TBA” when Samso read it on 5 October 2026 [R2]. Samso’s web searches on 2 and 5 October 2026 found no supplementary or replacement prospectus. The legal report says Stella Investments was recorded as holder of all the licences as at 1 July 2026. The prospectus describes Stella as an entity managed by Mr Torey Marshall. The transfer of the licences is a condition of completing the acquisition. The acquisition agreement has an end date of 30 September 2026, which extends to 31 October 2026 if applications for A$4 million have been received [R1]. If the offer conditions are not met within four months of the prospectus date, the company must repay applicants or issue a new prospectus and let them withdraw [R1]. Samso calculates that date as 27 November 2026. The Europa Metals Projects in Austria Europa first listed on the ASX in 2005 and left in 2019. In 2024 it sold its Toral lead, zinc and silver project in Spain for shares in Denarius Metals Corp, a Canadian-listed company. It was removed from London’s AIM market on 2 February 2026 because it had not bought a new project in the time AIM allows. It returned A$1,986,506 of capital to shareholders on 13 February 2026 [R1]. The new project comes through the purchase of Antimony Ventures Europe Pty Limited (AVE). The prospectus names the vendors as Torey Robert Marshall and Robert Jeffrey Marshall as trustee for the Torey Marshall Family Trust. Mr Torey Marshall becomes Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer when the deal completes. The price is 5,000,000 shares, 2,500,000 options, 1,500,000 performance rights, which are explained below, and a 2.5 per cent net smelter royalty, which is a share of the revenue from any metal sold [R1]. The assets are 451 Austrian exploration licences, called Freischürfe, covering 208.72 square kilometres in five project areas (FIG. 01). Kreuzeck West, Kreuzeck East and Goldeck-Siflitz sit together in the Kreuzeck-Goldeck district of Carinthia and take all of the minimum exploration budget. Schellgaden and Leogang are held as supporting projects [R1]. The licence counts differ inside the prospectus. The company and the legal report give Kreuzeck West 70 licences and Goldeck-Siflitz 119. The independent geologist gives 44 to 46 and 57, and calls those numbers provisional [R1]. Section 5.3 of the prospectus traces the project areas to a package bought in 2018 by Quest Minerals, which became High Grade Metals. The prospectus says Mr Marshall was Managing Director of High Grade Metals and ran its maiden exploration program in Austria. The package was later sold to Richmond Minerals, and in 2025 to Stella Investments. The legal report records that the current priority licences were granted in 2022 and 2024 and passed to Stella in March 2025 [R1]. Historical Antimony and Gold Mining Records Antimony occurs here as stibnite, an antimony sulphide mineral. Samso has covered other antimony stocks on the ASX, including Larvotto Resources’ Hillgrove antimony project and Critical Resources’ gold and antimony drilling in New South Wales. The independent geologist’s report was written by Mr Ian Buckingham of Global Resources & Infrastructure. It records 5,480 tonnes of stibnite ore from the Hermann Stollen workings at Rabant in Kreuzeck West (FIG. 02). The company’s summary says “over 5,000 tonnes” and puts that at 44 per cent of Austria’s output [R1]. At Kreuzeck East, historical literature reports ore grades commonly around 9 to 11 per cent antimony, with massive material up to about 36.8 per cent. At Fundkofel in Kreuzeck West, historical channel samples averaged about 14.7 grams of gold per tonne [R1]. The geologist qualifies these figures. The report calls them historical, non-JORC and not independently verified. JORC is the Australian code that sets how exploration results and resources are reported. The report presents no Mineral Resource and no Ore Reserve. It says no systematic modern diamond drilling, which recovers a solid core of rock, has been completed across Kreuzeck West. It was a desktop review with no new site visit [R1]. The geologist ranks Kreuzeck West first because antimony and gold occur close together there (FIG. 03). The report calls its model an exploration framework, not a statement of continuity or grade between the historical workings [R1]. Use of Funds and the Exploration Program The company expects to have A$5.019 million at the minimum raise. That is A$4 million from the offer plus about A$1.019 million of existing cash and listed shares (TABLE 02) [R1]. Exploration takes A$2.8 million over two years at the minimum raise. By Samso’s arithmetic that is 55.8 per cent of the total. Administration and the costs of the offer together take A$1.886 million, or 37.6 per cent (FIG. 04). Kreuzeck West receives A$1,515,000 at the minimum raise, Kreuzeck East A$865,000 and Goldeck-Siflitz A$420,000. The work starts with compiling historical mine plans. Mapping follows, then a helicopter electromagnetic survey, then sampling and first-pass drilling. An electromagnetic survey maps rock that conducts electricity, such as graphite-rich zones and possible sulphide bodies. The prospectus warns that graphite can give a strong response without any economic sulphides [R1]. The company says the minimum raise funds two years of operations. It also says it may need more equity after that [R1]. Capital Structure and Escrow At the minimum raise there will be 33,514,316 shares on issue (TABLE 03). At A$0.20 that is a market capitalisation, the value of all the shares, of A$6,702,863. The prospectus puts the enterprise value, which is the market value less cash and investments, at about A$2.6 million [R1]. There are 17,000,000 options and 2,250,000 performance rights behind the shares at the minimum raise. A performance right becomes a share only if a set hurdle is met. The vendor’s rights convert in thirds on 5,000 metres of drilling, on a JORC resource and on a positive scoping study. The resource hurdle is at least 250,000 ounces of gold equivalent at 3 grams per tonne, or 15,000 tonnes of antimony at 5 per cent. Each of the three hurdles must be met within 36 months [R1]. Escrow means a holder cannot sell for a set period. The vendor securities, the broker options and the director incentive securities are expected to be escrowed for 24 months from quotation. Shares bought in the public offer are not restricted. The company states a free float, the shares free to trade, of not less than 82.84 per cent [R1]. Board and Related Interests Mr Myles Campion, the Executive Chairman, is paid £130,000 a year. Mr Marshall will be paid A$250,000 a year. Dr Evan Kirby, a metallurgist, and Mr Daniel Smith, who is also company secretary, are non-executive directors paid A$40,000 a year each. Minerva Corporate, of which Mr Smith is a director and indirect shareholder, will be paid A$9,000 a month for secretarial and accounting services. Mr Campion, Mr Smith and Mr Marshall are each to receive 1,500,000 incentive options. Mr Campion and Mr Smith are also to receive 375,000 incentive rights each [R1]. Licence Renewal, Permits and Land Access “The Board considers Austria to be a Tier-1 mining jurisdiction and believes the portfolio has the potential to deliver meaningful results across the short, medium and long term.” Mr Myles Campion, Executive Chairman, in his letter to investors in the prospectus dated 27 July 2026 [R1] The prospectus says 62 licences at Goldeck-Siflitz and 26 at Kreuzeck West expire on 31 December 2026. The legal report counts 118 across the whole portfolio. The licences can be renewed for five years. The legal report states the test two ways. One passage says an extension is granted only if work has been carried out for five calendar years. Another says exploration must be shown in at least one of the five calendar years. The report also says the current holder, Stella Investments, has not sought to undertake exploration on the licences. The prospectus says renewal cannot be regarded as automatic [R1]. No exploration approvals are in place. No work programs, called Arbeitsprogramme, have been submitted or approved, and the company must obtain them before drilling. The legal report says no permits or approvals are available to date [R1]. Some licences sit in protected areas. At Kreuzeck West five are in a water protection zone and three are in a protected natural monument. At Schellgaden 39 are in a UNESCO biosphere reserve and four are in a Natura 2000 reserve, where mining, blasting and excavation are prohibited [R1]. An exploration licence in Austria does not give a right to enter land or a right to mine. Access must be agreed with landowners. The ground is alpine, so weather can shorten the field season [R1]. Near-term Milestones to Watch ASX admission and the first day of trading. Completion of the AVE acquisition and transfer of the licences to the Austrian subsidiary. Renewal of the licences that expire on 31 December 2026. Approval of the first work programs. The helicopter survey, then the first drilling. Samso Concluding Comments This IPO gives investors a small company with a historical mining district that the prospectus describes as under-explored by modern methods. The prospectus describes antimony as a critical mineral [R1]. The company’s headline grades of more than 30 per cent antimony and more than 10 grams of gold per tonne are historical and unverified, as the independent geologist’s report states [R1]. SAMSO TAKE The first two years are about paperwork and proof. The company needs its licences renewed, its work programs approved and its access agreed before the drill turns. Europa will be the fourth holder of these project areas since 2018, on the history in section 5.3 of the prospectus. Mr Marshall knows them from his time at High Grade Metals, which helps in getting started. What the market has not yet seen is a modern drill hole into these historical mines. Will the first holes find antimony and gold where the historical records say they are? THE OTHER WAY TO READ THIS A reader could weigh this more favourably. The company puts its enterprise value at about A$2.6 million, so the price being paid for the exploration ground is small in dollar terms. Part of the vendor’s payment only arrives with drilling, a resource and a scoping study. The company says the minimum raise funds two years of work, and the vendor and director securities are escrowed for 24 months. A reader could also weigh it less favourably. More than a third of the funds go to administration and offer costs at the minimum raise. No permit is in hand, and 88 priority licences come up for renewal within months of listing. VOCABULARY, IN PLAIN ENGLISH Antimony (Sb) A metal the prospectus describes as a critical mineral. Sb is its chemical symbol. Stibnite An antimony sulphide mineral. It is the main ore of antimony. Freischurf (plural Freischürfe) An Austrian exploration licence over a small fixed area. JORC Code The Australian code that sets how exploration results, resources and reserves are reported. Mineral Resource A modern estimate of the tonnes and grade of mineralisation, reported under the JORC Code. Channel sample A strip of rock cut across a vein or rock face and sent for assay. Electromagnetic survey A survey that finds rock that conducts electricity. Metal sulphides conduct, and so does graphite. Prospectus The legal document a company must issue before selling shares to the public. Market capitalisation The number of shares on issue multiplied by the share price. Free float The shares that are free to trade and are not held by related parties. Scoping study A first-pass technical and economic study of a possible mine. Diamond drilling Drilling that recovers a solid core of rock. Option A right to buy a share later at a set price. Performance right A right that becomes a share only if a set hurdle is met. Escrow A period in which a holder cannot sell. Net smelter royalty A share of the revenue from metal sold, after smelting and refining charges. Consolidation Combining existing shares into fewer shares. Here 12 existing shares become one. References and sources Every company figure in this piece comes from the prospectus unless another source is named. Where two parts of the prospectus disagree, both figures are quoted as published. [R1] Europa Metals Ltd, Prospectus dated 27 July 2026 and lodged with ASIC on that date. It includes the Independent Technical Report by Global Resources & Infrastructure dated 22 July 2026, the Independent Legal Report by DLA Piper Weiss-Tessbach and the Independent Limited Assurance Report by Moore Australia Corporate Finance (WA). Available at europametals.com. [R2] ASX, Upcoming floats and listings. Read on 2 and 5 October 2026. https://www.asx.com.au/listings/upcoming-floats-and-listings [R3] Europa Metals Ltd, Distribution of Notice of General Meeting, announcement on the JSE’s Stock Exchange News Service (SENS), 13 August 2026. https://www.listcorp.com/jse/euz/europa-metals-limited/news/distribution-of-notice-of-general-meeting-3389152.html [R4] Europa Metals Ltd, Results of General Meeting and Finalisation Announcement in respect of Consolidation, JSE SENS announcement, 8 September 2026. https://www.listcorp.com/jse/euz/europa-metals-limited/news/results-of-general-meeting-and-finalisation-announcement-in-respect-of-consolidation-3403444.html [R5] Europa Metals Ltd, Update in respect of the Proposed Transaction, JSE SENS announcement, 29 September 2026. https://www.listcorp.com/jse/euz/europa-metals-limited/news/update-in-respect-of-the-proposed-transaction-3414435.html Cover photo: Alpine landscape from the back cover of the Europa Metals Ltd prospectus dated 27 July 2026 (PDF page 238). The prospectus does not say where the photograph was taken. The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple. Cut through the noise and spotlight what matters. Genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Investors can explore our four core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News Samso Research There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember, digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiative for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insights from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Coffee with Samso, Samso Insights, Samso News and Samso Research are four ways into the same work. Interviews, long-form research, short takes on announcements and company-specific studies. Every one of them is about how to think about investing rather than what to buy. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies Samso News is independent research commentary for general information only. Nothing in this article is financial product advice, and it does not take into account any reader's objectives, financial situation or needs. Figures are drawn from public sources believed reliable at the stated dates but are not guaranteed. Market-sensitive numbers change daily. Samso or associated parties may hold positions in, or have commercial arrangements with, companies mentioned. Seek professional advice before making investment decisions. © Samso 2026 · samso.com.au

The Jacaranda Natural Resources IPO seeks A$8 million, and up to A$10 million, at 20 cents a share. The money funds two years of exploration for copper, gold and nickel at four early-stage projects, one in central Queensland and three in eastern Botswana. The offer closes on 2 October 2026. The Jacaranda Natural Resources IPO is one of the upcoming ASX IPOs for October 2026. Jacaranda Natural Resources Limited was incorporated in Western Australia on 2 February 2026. It plans to list as JRL, with trading expected to start on 22 October 2026 [R1]. Jacaranda has agreed to acquire the White Cockatoo Copper-Gold Project in Queensland from Bindi Metals Limited (ASX: BIM) and its subsidiary Lark Resources, and all the shares in Jacaranda Natural Botswana, the company set up to hold three Botswana projects, from Kago Bitsang Stimela [R1]. Both deals depend on the float. Samso explains the mechanics in How an IPO works, and reviewed another copper float in the Lux Copper IPO. THE SOURCE DOCUMENT Jacaranda Natural Resources Limited, Prospectus, dated 16 September 2026 and lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). It includes an Independent Technical Assessment Report by MinVal Pty Ltd and solicitor’s reports on the Queensland and Botswana tenure. It is available at jacarandaresources.com/prospectus [R1]. A note on the vocabulary. Terms are explained where they first appear and collected in one box at the back. Markers such as [R1] match the numbered sources at the end. Where the prospectus gives two figures for the same thing, both are quoted as published, with where each appears. Jacaranda Natural Resources IPO Price and Listing Date Jacaranda is offering 40,000,000 shares at A$0.20 to raise A$8,000,000 before costs. That is the minimum subscription, the amount below which no shares are issued. It may accept a further 10,000,000 shares, taking the raise to A$10,000,000. The offer is not underwritten, so no broker has agreed to take up shares the public does not. Shares are due to be issued on 19 October 2026, ahead of trading on 22 October [R1]. The implied market capitalisation at the offer price is A$13,111,500 at the minimum and A$15,111,500 at the maximum (TABLE 01). Ever-Sun Development (Hongkong) Limited has agreed to take up to 19 per cent of the shares on issue after the offer. At the minimum that is 12,455,925 shares, or about A$2.49 million of the A$8 million by Samso’s arithmetic [R1]. The prospectus puts the enterprise value, market value less net cash, at approximately A$4.6 million but does not show the calculation. Taking the pro forma cash of A$7,345,843, restated as if the offer had happened, from the A$13,111,500 market value gives about A$5.8 million by Samso’s arithmetic, before any allowance for liabilities [R1]. Jacaranda’s Four Copper, Gold and Nickel Projects The White Cockatoo Project covers about 409 square kilometres across three exploration permits, about 30 kilometres southeast of Biloela, a town in central Queensland. Bindi receives 1,250,000 shares, up to A$650,000 of further shares on milestones, and a 2 per cent net smelter return royalty, a cut of revenue from any future mine [R1]. In Botswana, Globe is a gold project near Francistown. Nkwe and Motloutse are copper-nickel projects south and east of Francistown (FIG. 01). Stimela receives cash, shares and performance rights, which convert into shares at no cost if set drilling targets are met [R1]. The prospectus gives the Nkwe licence area as 2,324.89 square kilometres in Table 3 and 2,284.89 square kilometres in Table 5. Executive Chairman Arvind Misra writes that the board believes the company has assembled “a highly attractive portfolio of advanced exploration assets at an important point in their development” [R1]. MinVal, the independent geologist, writes that the projects “are best described as early-stage exploration projects”. None of them has a Mineral Resource, an estimate of metal in the ground reported under the JORC Code, the Australian reporting standard [R1]. The White Cockatoo Copper-Gold Project Copper was found at the Great Blackall and Flanagan’s prospects in 1869 and mined from 1870 to 1874 [R1]. Bindi drilled 2,375 metres of reverse circulation (RC) holes in 2022. RC drilling brings up crushed rock chips rather than a solid core. The prospectus reports Flanagan’s intercepts, lengths of drill hole through metal-bearing rock, of up to 6.0 grams of gold per tonne (g/t) and 3.5 per cent copper. The appendix to MinVal’s report shows it is a single 1 metre sample, inside 2 metres at 3.04 g/t gold and 1.99 per cent copper [R1] [R2]. MinVal writes that the 2022 drilling “returned poor results and interpretations of a narrow mesothermal vein system”. Mesothermal veins form at moderate depth and temperature, and narrow means thin rather than a large body. Rock chip samples, pieces of rock broken from outcrop and chosen by the sampler, returned higher grades than the drilling. At Quartz Ridge, 2023 rock chip samples averaged 5.4 per cent copper, 0.9 g/t gold and 248 g/t silver over a zone 200 metres long and 5 metres wide [R1]. The prospectus quotes a Quartz Ridge peak of 30 per cent copper in Section 3.6 and 24 per cent in Section 3.7. Quartz Ridge and Tea Tree are the first drill targets. At Tea Tree, Bindi’s 2023 resampling of a historical trench, a long shallow cut dug to expose rock, returned 25 metres at 1.3 g/t gold and 1.5 per cent copper [R1]. The larger target is a possible porphyry, a big, lower-grade copper-gold deposit formed around a buried intrusion. A three-dimensional model built from magnetic survey data shows a body of strongly magnetic rock about 1,050 by 850 metres beneath Great Blackall and Flanagan’s (FIG. 02). The prospectus says it starts at about 150 metres depth and MinVal says more than 200 metres. MinVal adds that an induced polarisation survey, which detects sulphide minerals (metals such as copper combined with sulphur), showed “limited anomalism” over it, meaning only weak signs of sulphides [R1]. The Globe, Nkwe and Motloutse Projects in Botswana Globe lies about 5 kilometres southeast of Francistown in the Tati Greenstone Belt, a belt of ancient volcanic rocks known for gold. One licence is granted and three are applications. In 2021 Power Metals mapped a gold-in-soil anomaly, an area where soil holds more gold than the ground around it, about 2.1 kilometres long. Seven RC holes in 2022 tested 200 metres of it (FIG. 03). The best result was 3 metres at 5.17 g/t gold. Four trenches dug in 2026 returned no significant grades, while a single hand-picked rock sample returned 17.88 g/t gold [R1]. Nkwe is a copper-nickel target in the Limpopo Mobile Belt, a zone of deeply buried and deformed ancient rock. Five targets come from survey data showing magnetic rocks and rocks that conduct electricity, both possible signs of sulphides. The prospectus records no earlier exploration for copper, nickel or other base metals on the ground. MinVal notes that Kalahari sand, 40 to 60 metres thick in nearby areas, can hide the rock beneath [R1]. Motloutse has historical trench results up to 3.5 per cent copper and 1.2 g/t gold. Two earlier explorers, BCL in 1974 and Gold Fields from 1989 to 1991, judged the mineralisation there not to be of economic interest. The licence covers copper and nickel but not gold. Assays for 17 samples taken in May 2026 were not available at the prospectus date [R1]. Jacaranda does not yet hold the Botswana licences. The Botswana solicitor’s report says the licence transfers are still awaiting approval by the Department of Mines. A second ministerial consent, for Jacaranda to take control of the Botswana company, has not been applied for, and it “must be obtained before completion” [R1]. How Jacaranda Will Use the IPO Funds At the minimum, A$9,039,103 is available over two years, including A$739,109 of cash on hand and A$300,000 received before the offer. Exploration takes A$4,975,000, or 55.04 per cent of the funds available. Corporate overheads take A$1,926,996 (FIG. 04) [R1]. The prospectus gives two different exploration budgets. Section 2.9 gives A$4,975,000 at the minimum, while MinVal’s budget gives A$4,475,000. The split between Queensland and Botswana also differs (TABLE 02) [R1]. The Bindi agreement requires Jacaranda either to drill at least 500 metres at White Cockatoo within 12 months of the acquisition completing, or to issue Bindi the first milestone shares. If it fails agreed work programmes and does not remedy the breach, Bindi can buy the project back for A$1.00 [R1]. Jacaranda’s Board, Major Shareholders and Escrow Misra founded Belararox (ASX: BRX) and was its managing director. Graeme Morissey, executive director and chief financial officer, previously held that role at Warriedar Resources. Chief executive Craig Hatch was general manager of the King of the Hills gold mine for Red 5, now Vault Minerals [R1]. After the offer at the minimum, Ever-Sun would hold 19.0 per cent, Misra’s trust company 7.33 per cent, Purebond 7.25 per cent and the Solai Pension Scheme 5.72 per cent. Directors and management hold 8,800,000 performance rights. One fifth convert into shares on listing, with no other target [R1]. Misra’s son is employed as finance and business development manager, and a company associated with Stimela, the Botswana vendor, will provide services including drilling. Shares held by directors, vendors and early investors will likely be escrowed, meaning they cannot be sold, for up to 24 months [R1]. Risks in the Jacaranda IPO There is no Mineral Resource on any project. Much of the data comes from earlier owners, and MinVal did not visit the sites [R1]. Exploration Permit for Minerals (EPM) 28063, the Tea Tree permit, expires on 1 February 2027 and its renewal must be lodged before 2 November 2026. MinVal notes two of the permits partly overlap Kroombit Tops National Park [R1]. The prospectus expects the company to raise more money to take the projects beyond the funded exploration, through debt, equity or both [R1]. Recent IPO Status Sixteen resource companies, most of them explorers, have listed on the ASX through an IPO since late March 2026. They are not a yardstick for Jacaranda, which has not listed and has its own price, cash and projects. They show how recent explorer floats have traded and what each has reported since (FIG. 05 and TABLE 03) [R3]. On 24 September 2026, ten were above their issue price and six below. Kaoko Metals, up 1,025 per cent, is the outlier, and the middle result is a gain of about 16 per cent. Eight have reported drilling. The rest have reported surveys or other early work, or no field results yet [R3] [R4]. Samso Concluding Comments Jacaranda would list at about A$13.1 million at the minimum raise, with two years of exploration funded. Bindi’s work gives White Cockatoo ready targets, and Globe has a soil anomaly and a drilled intercept to follow. The change of control consent must be approved before Jacaranda’s purchase of the Botswana company can complete. SAMSO TAKE Buying ground others have already mapped, sampled and drilled gives Jacaranda targets on day one. The 200 metres drilled at Globe are a small part of a 2.1 kilometre soil anomaly, and the deep magnetic body at White Cockatoo waits for year-two diamond drill holes, which recover a solid core of rock. Will the first holes at Quartz Ridge and Tea Tree confirm the surface grades? THE OTHER WAY TO READ THIS The headline Queensland drill grade is a single metre inside a 2 metre intercept, and the independent geologist calls the 2022 Flanagan’s results poor. The deep target showed limited sulphide response. Globe’s 2026 trenches returned no significant grades. The Botswana licences are not yet Jacaranda’s, and one fifth of the management rights convert into shares on listing alone. Read that way, investors are paying for the chance to drill-test targets earlier owners identified but did not drill deeply. THE VOCABULARY, IN PLAIN ENGLISH IPO Initial public offering. A company selling shares to the public for the first time so it can list on the ASX. MINIMUM SUBSCRIPTION The least a company must raise before it issues any shares. If it is not reached, money is returned. UNDERWRITTEN A broker agreeing to take up any shares the public does not. Jacaranda’s offer is not underwritten. ENTERPRISE VALUE A company’s market value less its net cash. It is roughly what the market pays for the business and projects. PRO FORMA Accounts restated as if the offer had already happened. MINERAL RESOURCE An estimate of metal in the ground with reasonable prospects of eventually being mined, reported under the JORC Code. G/T Grams per tonne, the amount of gold or silver in each tonne of rock. RC DRILLING Reverse circulation drilling. It returns crushed rock chips rather than a solid core, and is cheaper and faster than diamond drilling. INTERCEPT A length of drill hole that passes through metal-bearing rock, measured along the hole. ROCK CHIP SAMPLE A piece of rock broken from an outcrop and assayed. It is selected by the sampler and does not show average grade. PORPHYRY A large, usually lower-grade copper and gold deposit formed around a buried body of cooling magma. INDUCED POLARISATION (IP) A ground survey that passes current through rock to find sulphide minerals, which often carry copper. GREENSTONE BELT A belt of very old, altered volcanic rocks. They host many gold deposits. NET SMELTER RETURN ROYALTY A payment to the royalty holder, a share of revenue from any metal sold, after smelting and transport costs. PERFORMANCE RIGHTS Rights that convert into shares at no cost if set targets are met. ESCROW A period after listing during which some holders cannot sell their shares. References and sources Each [R#] in the text matches the numbered entry below. Company figures come from the prospectus unless marked otherwise. FIG. 01 to FIG. 03 are reproduced from the prospectus with the source quoted. FIG. 04, TABLE 01 and TABLE 02 are Samso’s, built only from prospectus figures. FIG. 05 and TABLE 03 are Samso’s, built from ASX announcements and ASX market data. Documents and prices were read on 24 September 2026. [R1] Jacaranda Natural Resources Limited, Prospectus, dated 16 September 2026, lodged with ASIC. Chairman’s Letter, Indicative Timetable, Key Offer Details, Sections 1 to 9, Annexure A (Independent Technical Assessment Report, MinVal Pty Ltd, 27 August 2026), Annexure C (Solicitor’s Report, Queensland, Allion Partners) and Annexure D (Solicitor’s Report, Botswana, Khan Corporate Law). [R2] Bindi Metals Limited, ASX announcement of 23 January 2023, as reproduced in the MinVal report, Appendix A, “Bindi RC Drillhole selected assay results at a cut-off of 0.1%Cu”, hole BIM011, 21 to 23 metres. [R3] ASX Limited, company announcements platform, announcements released from 25 March to 24 September 2026 by Valiant Gold (VAL), 49 Metals (49M), Bison Resources (BSR), Kaoko Metals (KAO), Daly Resources (DLY), Neu Horizon Uranium (NHU), Tetragon Energy (TET), Lux Copper (LUX), Alurion Resources (ALU), Gwardar Resources (GRS), Elk Range Mining (ELK), WhiteRock Lithium (WLC), Powerhaus Uranium (POW), Almasar Minerals (AMK), Axiant Resources (AXR) and Parbo Resources (PRB), including each pre-quotation disclosure and listing announcement. Listing dates from the ASX company directory. [R4] ASX Limited market data, last sale price for each company read after the close of trading on 24 September 2026. A company that did not trade that day shows its most recent sale. Cover photo: trenching work at the Globe Gold Project (PL0121/2025), Botswana. Jacaranda Natural Resources Limited, Prospectus dated 16 September 2026, page 37. Cropped and enlarged by Samso. The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple. Cut through the noise and spotlight what matters. Genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Investors can explore our four core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News Samso Research There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember, digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiative for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insights from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Coffee with Samso, Samso Insights, Samso News and Samso Research are four ways into the same work. Interviews, long-form research, short takes on announcements and company-specific studies. Every one of them is about how to think about investing rather than what to buy. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies Samso News is independent research commentary for general information only. Nothing in this article is financial product advice, and it does not take into account any reader's objectives, financial situation or needs. Figures are drawn from public sources believed reliable at the stated dates but are not guaranteed. Market-sensitive numbers change daily. Samso or associated parties may hold positions in, or have commercial arrangements with, companies mentioned. Seek professional advice before making investment decisions. © Samso 2026 · samso.com.au

Samso Market Update | Monday, 5 October 2026 | Market close 4:30pm AEDT The S&P/ASX 200, the index of the 200 largest listed companies, closed 4.3 points higher on the ASX today, up 0.05% at 8,686.4. The index had been up 53.5 points, or 0.62%, at 8,735.6 shortly after 11:00am AEDT. The All Ordinaries, which tracks the 500 largest listed companies, rose 4.5 points or 0.05% to 8,859.2. The S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries, an index of the companies ranked 101 to 300 by size, fell 12.1 points or 0.36% to 3,314.3. Friday's edition is ASX today, Friday 2 October 2026. ASX today: Key Highlights The ASX 200 closed at 8,686.4, up 4.3 points or 0.05%. Its high for the day was 8,735.6. Four of the 11 sectors rose. Health care gained 0.74% and consumer discretionary fell 0.88%. More shares fell than rose. Of 1,462 companies that traded, 509 rose, 598 fell and 355 were unchanged. Southern Cross Electrical Engineering (ASX: SXE) rose 9.69% to A$5.32, with no ASX announcement today. Artrya (ASX: AYA) fell 12.16% to A$3.25, with no ASX announcement today. West Texas Intermediate crude, the US oil benchmark, was trading at US$89.95 a barrel at about 4:24pm AEDT, down 1.27% from Friday's close. The morning gain and the flat close The ASX 200 opened higher and reached 8,735.6 shortly after 11:00am AEDT. ABC News reported the index at 8,732 at 11:41am and at 8,696 at 1:55pm. It closed at 8,686.4. ABC News reported that the ASX opened higher following Friday's US jobs report. US employers added 29,000 jobs in September and economists had expected 90,000. ABC News put the chance of a US interest rate rise this month, as priced by traders, at around 23%, down from 64% a week earlier. Market Index described the session as fairly uneventful and said the New South Wales public holiday kept a lid on activity. Health care was the strongest of the 11 sectors, up 0.74%. Materials, the sector that holds the miners, rose 0.36%. Industrials rose 0.21% and financials rose 0.05%. The other seven sectors fell. Consumer discretionary fell 0.88%, communication services fell 0.51% and information technology fell 0.48%. More large companies fell than rose. Among companies above A$1 billion, 88 rose and 174 fell. BHP Group (ASX: BHP), the largest company on the ASX, rose 1.11% to A$61.89. One piece of Australian data came out today. The S&P Global Australia Services PMI for September was 51.9, down from 53.2 in August, according to investingLive. A PMI, or purchasing managers' index, is a monthly survey of company managers, and a reading above 50 means activity grew. The report said service companies cut staff for the first time in four months. There was no Reserve Bank of Australia announcement today. Blue Chips (above A$1 billion) Samso sorts companies into four size bands by market capitalisation at the previous close. Market capitalisation is the value of all of a company's shares. Turnover is the dollar value of shares traded in the day. Southern Cross Electrical Engineering (ASX: SXE) rose 9.69% to A$5.32 on turnover of A$30.1 million, with no ASX announcement today. GenusPlus Group (ASX: GNP) rose 5.40% to A$9.95, with no ASX announcement today. Macmahon Holdings (ASX: MAH) rose 4.50% to A$1.045 on the day it announced a two-year, A$98 million contract extension at Daisy Milano. Cochlear (ASX: COH) rose 4.20% to A$130.66 on turnover of A$47.4 million, with no ASX announcement today. 4DMedical (ASX: 4DX) fell 6.22% to A$4.07 on turnover of A$12.0 million, with no ASX announcement today. L1 Global Long Short Fund (ASX: GLS) fell 4.35% to A$1.87 on the day it released its monthly net tangible asset backing, the value of the fund's assets per share. Waypoint REIT (ASX: WPR) fell 3.81% to A$2.02, with no ASX announcement today. Mid Caps (A$500 million to A$1 billion) Rox Resources (ASX: RXL) rose 5.88% to A$0.63 on the day it released an announcement titled "Financial Close and First Drawdown". Chrysos Corporation (ASX: C79) rose 4.92% to A$7.04 and Alpha HPA (ASX: A4N) rose 4.80% to A$0.655. Neither made an ASX announcement today. Artrya (ASX: AYA) fell 12.16% to A$3.25 on turnover of A$8.1 million, with no ASX announcement today. It was the largest fall in the band. Hansen Technologies (ASX: HSN) fell 4.39% to A$3.27 and Larvotto Resources (ASX: LRV) fell 4.33% to A$0.995. Neither made an ASX announcement today. Small Caps (A$150 million to A$500 million) Many Peaks Minerals (ASX: MPK) rose 10.00% to A$1.10 on turnover of A$0.15 million, with no ASX announcement today. St George Mining (ASX: SGQ) rose 6.45% to A$0.066, with no ASX announcement today. HealthCo Healthcare and Wellness REIT (ASX: HCW) rose 5.67% to A$0.745 on the day it released an announcement titled "Healthscope Situation Resolved and Distributions Reinstated". Stakk (ASX: SKK) fell 11.54% to A$0.023 on turnover of A$2.7 million, with no ASX announcement today. Elementos (ASX: ELT) fell 8.00% to A$0.46 and Count (ASX: CUP) fell 6.64% to A$1.335. Neither made an ASX announcement today. Micro Caps (below A$150 million) 333D (ASX: T3D) rose 31.43% to A$0.046 on turnover of A$0.09 million. It answered an ASX price query during the session. A price query is a letter from the exchange asking a company whether it knows of a reason for a move in its shares. Ionic Rare Earths (ASX: IXR) rose 19.42% to A$0.615 on turnover of A$1.9 million, with no ASX announcement today. archTIS (ASX: AR9) rose 17.14% to A$0.082 on the day it announced an A$315,000 US Department of Defense contract. Imugene (ASX: IMU) rose 16.22% to A$0.043 on the day it released an announcement titled "azer-cel BTKi Cohort Reports new Complete & Partial Response". Micro-X (ASX: MX1) fell 11.29% to A$0.055, with no ASX announcement today. Dreadnought Resources (ASX: DRE) fell 7.69% to A$0.012 and Solis Minerals (ASX: SLM) fell 7.55% to A$0.049. Neither made an ASX announcement today. Shares priced below one cent are left out of this band, because a single price step moves them by 10% or more. Commodities and Currency Prices are as at about 4:24pm AEDT, and each change is measured from Friday's close. A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell at a set price on a later date, and the contract month is the month it falls due. Gold futures for December were at US$4,164.90 an ounce, up 0.06%. Silver for December was at US$61.31 an ounce, up 1.47%. Copper for December was at US$6.571 a pound, up 0.34%. Brent crude for December was at US$101.49 a barrel, down 0.74%. West Texas Intermediate for November was at US$89.95 a barrel, down 1.27%. ABC News reported that the G7 group of countries agreed on Friday to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude oil from reserves. Iron ore was approximately US$90.90 a tonne, according to Market Index. The Australian dollar was buying approximately 69.4 US cents at 4:34pm AEDT. It was at approximately 69.6 US cents at 8:45am. Samso Concluding Comments The ASX 200 was up 53.5 points in the morning and closed 4.3 points higher. Four sectors rose and seven fell, and about two shares fell for every one that rose among companies above A$1 billion. The two largest moves in the top two bands, Southern Cross Electrical Engineering and Artrya, came with no ASX announcement today. Building approvals for August are due from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday at 11:30am AEDT. General information only. This is not financial advice. Samso Market Update | Monday, 5 October 2026 | Pre-market 9:45am AEDT Futures point to a higher open on the ASX today. ASX 200 futures were up 0.3% at 8,746 points at 7:00am AEDT, according to ABC News. A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell at a set price on a later date, and its price shows where traders expect the index to go. The S&P/ASX 200 closed on Friday at 8,682.1, up 67.7 points or 0.79%. The Australian dollar was buying approximately 69.6 US cents at 8:45am AEDT. Friday's edition is ASX today, Friday 2 October 2026. ASX today: Key Highlights ASX 200 futures were up 0.3% at 8,746 points at 7:00am AEDT (ABC News). US employers added 29,000 jobs in September. Economists had expected 90,000, according to ABC News and Yahoo Finance. Wall Street rose on Friday. The S&P 500 gained 0.73% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.19%. The yield on the US 10-year government bond closed at about 5.28%, up 0.04 of a percentage point on the day. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.94% on Friday. It had risen 3.3% on Thursday. New South Wales, the ACT, South Australia and Queensland have a public holiday today. The ASX trades as normal. Wall Street overnight The four main US share indices rose on Friday (FIG. 01). The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.49% to 51,176.96. The S&P 500 gained 0.73% to 7,722.72. The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.19% to 27,190.86. The Russell 2000, an index of smaller US companies, gained 0.94% to 2,832.90. The US Labor Department's monthly jobs report showed employers added 29,000 jobs in September. Economists had expected 90,000, according to ABC News and Yahoo Finance. The unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1%. Yahoo Finance reported that shares rose because investors lowered their expectations of an interest rate rise from the Federal Reserve, the US central bank. ABC News put the market's implied chance of a rise this month at around 23%, down from 64% a week earlier. The US 10-year Treasury yield closed at about 5.28%, up 4 basis points from 5.24% on Thursday (FIG. 02). A Treasury is a US government bond. A bond yield is the yearly return from buying a government bond at today's price, and when yields rise, bond prices fall. A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point. The yield fell as low as about 5.16% during the session. Yahoo Finance reported that it fell after the jobs report and then rose again. Japan The Nikkei 225 closed on Friday at 68,309.46, down 647.26 points or 0.94%. It had risen 3.3% on Thursday. Business Recorder reported during the session that the index fell as investors locked in gains after Thursday's rise. It quoted Yuta Okamoto, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Intelligence Laboratory, as saying concerns about short-term overheating were likely to lead to profit-taking. The same report said core inflation in Tokyo rose in September at its fastest pace in 10 months, which supports the case for further rate rises by the Bank of Japan. The US dollar was buying approximately 157.70 yen at 8:45am AEDT. London and Europe London's FTSE 100 closed on Friday at 10,461.95, up 0.32%. Germany's DAX gained 1.17% to 25,231.20. France's CAC 40 gained 0.79% to 7,897.19. Currencies The Australian dollar was buying approximately 69.6 US cents at 8:45am AEDT, about 0.4% above Friday's close. The US dollar index, which measures the US dollar against six major currencies, closed on Friday at 101.93, down 0.17%. The US dollar was buying approximately 157.70 yen. Commodities Gold futures for December delivery closed on Friday at US$4,162.30 an ounce, down 0.95% (TABLE 01). The contract month is the month a futures contract falls due. Silver for December fell 1.24% to US$60.42 an ounce. Copper for December rose 0.17% to US$6.549 a pound. Brent crude for December closed at US$102.25 a barrel, down 0.06%. West Texas Intermediate, the US oil benchmark, closed at US$91.11 a barrel for November delivery, down 1.90% (FIG. 03). Iron ore was approximately US$91.40 a tonne on Friday, according to ABC News. Today's diary Public holidays today. Labour Day in New South Wales, the ACT and South Australia, and the King's Birthday in Queensland. The ASX trades as normal. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has no release listed for today. Wednesday, 11:30am AEDT. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building Approvals for August. Samso Concluding Comments US employers added 29,000 jobs in September, and US shares rose on Friday. Yahoo Finance reported that investors lowered their expectations of a Federal Reserve rate rise. The US 10-year Treasury yield still closed higher on the day, at about 5.28%, and Brent crude closed above US$102 a barrel. ASX 200 futures indicate a higher open. Three states and the ACT have a public holiday and no Australian Bureau of Statistics release is listed for today. General information only. This is not financial advice.

Across two years of Sunstone, the recent part of the chart has the shape of a stock that has stopped falling. This piece tests that shape with the measures a technical trader would use, explains each one as it goes, and says where the chart supports the impression and where it does not. Patrick Duffy, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Sunstone Metals, is presenting an update on the company and its exploration portfolio. That is why we are looking at Sunstone this week. This is a Samso Chart Read. We take the share price on its own, ask what a reader would think looking at it, then test that against what the chart measures. There is no call here. HOW TO USE THIS PIECE Every technical term is explained in plain English where it first appears, and all of them are collected again in the vocabulary box at the back. Numbers in square brackets, like [R7], are sources. The reference list at the end of the piece names the ASX announcement or data source behind each one. 1.00 THE IMPRESSION. A Fall, Then a Flat Patch The chart draws prices on a consolidation-adjusted basis, meaning every price before the February 2026 share consolidation has been rewritten so the line does not jump at the event. Section 4.00 covers what that does. On that basis Sunstone ran from 15 cents to a closing high of 75 cents by December 2025, fell through the first half of 2026, and has closed between 16.5 and 21.25 cents since early July. At the right-hand end of FIG. 01 the fall has stopped, and the flat patch could be a floor forming or a pause on the way down. The sections below apply the measures that test it. 2.00 THE MEASURES. Every Measure but One Reads Sideways TABLE 01 names each measure before giving its reading. The 20- and 55-session windows are the two breakout windows of the Turtle trading system, set out by one of its traders, Curtis Faith, in Way of the Turtle (2007) [R10]. They run roughly a trading month and a trading quarter. The 50-day moving average is the average closing price over the last 50 sessions, and at A$0.1905 against a 19.5 cent close the price is 2.4% above it. The Average Directional Index, introduced by J. Welles Wilder Jr in New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems in 1978, the book that also gave the market the Relative Strength Index and the Average True Range [R8], measures how strongly a price is trending without saying which way. Later convention, not Wilder's, puts a trending market above 25 and a directionless one below 20. Sunstone's ADX reads 16.17, and the two halves are almost level, +DI at 21.06 against −DI at 19.29. The price has closed inside an 18 to 20.5 cent band for 35 straight sessions, back to 4 August [R7]. Those two halves changed places on the day this piece measures. On 18 September −DI led at 20.35 against 19.47, and on 21 September +DI leads at 21.06 against 19.29. The crossing of those lines is what carries direction in Wilder's system, and ADX is the separate measure of whether direction is worth reading at all. At 16.17 it says not much, so the cross is worth naming and not worth weighting. All of that says the stock is going sideways, so the impression from FIG. 01 is right as far as it goes. Sideways on its own is not evidence of a floor. One qualification belongs with the ADX figure. It has been under 20 for only five sessions, it read 42.98 as recently as 2 July, and its median across the two years FIG. 01 draws is 30.77. The quiet is five sessions old and the trend before it was strong. The 200-day moving average looks like it disagrees. It reads A$0.3494 with the price 44% below it and the line falling at 11.78% over 20 sessions, which, taken at face value, says the long trend is still falling. That slope carries almost no new information. The 20 sessions dropping out of the back of the window averaged 66 cents, the 20 coming in averaged 19.6 cents, and over the same period the price itself was up 2.63%. The line is falling because the December 2025 peak is dropping out of the window. That window also spans the 29 June placement covered in section 3.00, which moved the price 17% lower in a session, so the average is drawn across a step as well as across a fall. The 50-day window is short enough to start after it. If Sunstone stays at 19.5 cents and never moves again, that line still has 130 sessions of falling left in it, about six months, before it reaches the price. 3.00 THE ANNOUNCEMENTS. The Announcements Behind the Two Spikes, and the One Behind the Fall Two sessions stand out on the volume bars, the heaviest of the last twelve months and the third heaviest. The second heaviest was 30 June, the day after the first of them, so the two examined first are two separate events. Neither was the market changing its mind, and TABLE 02 sets out why. Volume is measured against its recent normal, the median of the previous 20 traded sessions. The median is the middle value rather than the average, so one very large day cannot drag the benchmark up, and halt days are left out because a session nobody could trade says nothing about a normal one. Both days came in at roughly seven times normal, 6.91 and 7.33, with outcomes a long way apart. The 29 June session is a capital raising. Sunstone placed shares at 17.5 cents, a 14.6% discount to the last close of 20.5 cents [R3]. That close was struck on 24 June. Sunstone went into a trading halt on the 25th, a pause a company requests so an announcement can be released, and did not trade again until the 29th, so the gap down of 12.20% measures a reopening after the halt. The stock then closed at 17 cents, half a cent through the placement price. The 9 September session is a drill result the company described as an exceptional high-grade zone [R5]. The stock opened 7.89% up, reached 22 cents during the day, and closed at 20 cents, giving back 9.09% from the day's high (FIG. 02). Seven sessions later, on 18 September, it was back at 19 cents, where it had closed on 8 September. The 176-metre intersection announced on 18 August [R4] closed its session unchanged. Neither spike started a trend. The first reset the price to the placement. The second was bought for a session and sold back. One more announcement came earlier, inside the fall, and never showed up on the volume bars. Sunstone released a scoping study for its Bramaderos gold-copper project on 21 April 2026, a scoping study being an early, low-precision test of whether a deposit could be mined at a profit [R11]. On 11 May the company retracted the study's production targets and forecast financial information, saying that following consultation with the ASX it did not have a reasonable basis for them, because of the proportion of Inferred material in the production target, Inferred being the least certain of the categories a resource is reported in. The same announcement states that the study's other material assumptions are unaffected [R12]. The stock closed at 42.5 cents on 27 April and at 30 cents on 20 May, a fall of 29%. Neither of those sessions was a heavy one, so a move that size happened without the volume bars marking it. 4.00 THE CONSOLIDATION. The Consolidation Rewrote Every Price Before February 2026 One thing on this chart is not price movement at all. That is the February 2026 step. On 22 January 2026 Sunstone announced a share consolidation, every 30 shares becoming 1, effective 23 February [R1] and completed on 6 March [R2]. A consolidation changes the number of shares, not the value of the holding. Two of the company's documents word the ratio differently. The announcements of 22 January and 6 March 2026 both call it a 30-for-1 consolidation [R1][R2], and Note 13 of the 2026 Annual Report calls the same event a 1-for-30 consolidation [R13]. The arithmetic is the same either way. 6,572,004,541 shares came off the register and 226,622,757 remained. A holder of 30,000 shares at 1.7 cents, roughly where Sunstone dealt in the days before the event, held A$510 of stock before it and the same A$510 after, as 1,000 shares at 51 cents. Price data providers back-adjust for it, multiplying each earlier price by 30 and dividing each earlier volume by 30, so the line stays continuous. That is correct, and it is why the chart no longer shows what anybody actually paid. Sunstone traded at half a cent in September 2024, and a two-year chart today prints 15 cents for that day (FIG. 03). Any shape drawn across February 2026 is drawn across an event that was not the market doing anything. The ratios in TABLE 01 survive this, because multiplying every old price by the same 30 leaves a percentage unchanged. The dollar levels do not. The 200-day average is blended out of prices that nobody dealt at, which is worth holding in mind whenever that line is read as a level. 5.00 TICK SIZE. The Tick, and Why the Daily Moves Look Bigger Than They Are The tick is the minimum price step a security is allowed to move. The ASX sets it in bands [R6]. Up to 10 cents the step is a tenth of a cent, and from 10 cents up to A$2.00 it is half a cent. TABLE 03 gives the step as a percentage of the price. At 19.5 cents one tick is 2.56% of the price. That is the smallest move the ordinary order book allows, so a 5.13% day is two steps. Over the last 60 sessions the median day has travelled two and a half ticks between its high and its low, 6.41% of a 19.5 cent close, so a two-tick move from one close to the next is about the ground a typical day covers. From the first session after the consolidation completed, 9 March 2026, Sunstone has traded on 136 days to 21 September, giving 135 changes from one close to the next. On 131 of those days the close landed exactly on a half-cent step, 82 of the 135 changes were two ticks or fewer, and on 16 days the price did not move at all (FIG. 04). The other five closes printed at a quarter of a cent, 19.25 cents on 31 August among them. A quarter of a cent is exactly half a tick, and the ordinary order book cannot form it. Some ASX trade types can, because one ASX Centre Point order type matches at the mid-point of the National Best Bid and Offer [R9], and the mid-point of a one-tick spread falls on a quarter of a cent. We have not established how these five were struck, and we have not counted them as steps. Percentage moves on a cheap stock are therefore not comparable with those on a dear one. When Sunstone dealt at half a cent, one tick was 20% of the price, and a 20% day was a single tick. 6.00 FAILURE CONDITIONS. What Would Change This Reading The reading is a stock going sideways, with no trend in either direction and both recent spikes explained by events. The band is not tight. On closes, 18 to 20.5 cents is five half-cent ticks, about 14% of the low. Three things on the chart would change the reading. The first is a close above 20.5 cents, the highest close of the last 20 sessions, on volume several times the 20-day median, with the move held for more than one session. All three parts count, because 9 September was already a single heavy day that did not hold. The second is a close below 16.5 cents, the lowest close of the last 55 sessions, which would say the sideways band had given way. The third is ADX moving above 25, which would say a trend had started, still without saying which way, because that is what the +DI and −DI pair carries. ADX smooths 14 sessions of directional movement with a decaying weight on everything before them, so it lags and confirms a move that has already happened. What none of those three does is tell a base from a pause while the price is still inside the band. The test that would separate them is volume behaviour on repeated visits to the bottom of the band. If each trip down to 18 cents draws less selling than the last, and a probe below it gets bought back the same day, a reader has evidence of a floor rather than a shape. That evidence is not on this chart yet, and it is what to watch for on any stock in this position. 6.10 THE LIQUIDITY CAVEAT. Very Little Money Draws This Chart One caveat covers all three conditions and everything above them. It is how little money changes hands. Turnover is shares traded multiplied by the closing price. Median daily turnover over the last 20 traded sessions is A$79,742, and over the two years the median traded day turned over A$89,315. Halt days are out of both, on the same reasoning that keeps them out of the volume benchmark in section 3.00. The 20-day line in FIG. 05 has spent 47% of its time under A$100,000 and the rest above, and it is under it now. For scale, DGR Global's substantial holding of 28,401,689 shares was 10.00% of Sunstone at 31 August 2026 [R13], which puts about 284 million shares on issue, Samso's arithmetic from those two figures, and the whole company at about A$55 million at a 19.5 cent close. Turnover that low means a pattern is drawn by very little money, and it cannot carry the weight the same pattern would in a large company's stock. That applies to every small-cap chart, this one included. Eleven sessions in the two-year window carry no volume at all. Seven are trading halts, three fall inside a voluntary suspension in May 2025, and on 8 January 2025 the stock was quoted and nobody traded. THE OTHER WAY TO READ THIS A range can hold for a long time without resolving, and that is the flatter reading of the same chart. A stock 74% below its highest close of the last two years, a shade above its 50-day line and with ADX at 16, is a stock going sideways after a fall, and it is one of the most common shapes on the ASX junior board. On that reading the 9 September session was what a market this small does with any news, which is to trade it for a day. The two-year return is still positive at 30.0%, and a stock that has held an 18 to 20.5 cent band for 35 straight sessions after a fall of that size has at least stopped being sold. Nothing measured above rules any of this out. 7.00 SAMSO CONCLUDING COMMENTS. The Fall Has Stopped, but a Range Is Not a Base The impression at the right-hand end of this chart is half right. The fall has stopped, but what replaced it is a range, and a range is not yet a base. Nothing measured here tells the two apart. Over the full two years the price is up 30.0%, which describes none of the path, and the two sessions examined above were both events rather than turns. SAMSO TAKE A chart like this one is most useful for what it rules out, and it rules out a trend in either direction on every measure that describes the present, with the 200-day average explained above. Anyone reading the flat patch as a floor is reading something the chart has not shown. That does not make them wrong. It does mean the evidence has to come from somewhere other than this chart. So the question a reader is left with is whether they are prepared to wait for that evidence to appear. THE WORDS IN THIS PIECE, IN PLAIN ENGLISH Moving average. The average closing price over a set number of recent sessions, redrawn each day. The 200-day version is the line most widely watched as the divide between a long uptrend and a long downtrend, and the 50-day is the shorter-term version of the same idea. ADX. The Average Directional Index, introduced by J. Welles Wilder Jr in New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems in 1978, the book that also gave the market the Relative Strength Index and the Average True Range. It measures how strongly a price is trending and says nothing about which way. It smooths 14 sessions of directional movement with a decaying weight on everything before them, so it lags. Later market convention, not Wilder's, puts a trending market above 25 and a directionless one below 20. ADX is built from two halves, +DI for upward pressure and −DI for downward, and the two are worth reading alongside it. Range. The band between the highest and lowest price over a set number of sessions. A price moving inside its range is going nowhere in trend terms, whatever the day-to-day moves look like. This piece measures ranges on closing prices. Base. A stretch of sideways trading that a later rise starts from. Every base is a range while it is forming, but most ranges never turn into one, and the difference is only visible afterwards. Trading halt. A short pause in trading, normally no more than two trading days, that a company requests so it can release an announcement. A voluntary suspension is the longer version, used when the matter cannot be settled inside that time. Median. The middle value in a list. It is used here in place of the average because one very large day would drag an average up and leave every other day looking quiet by comparison. Turnover. Shares traded multiplied by the price, so a dollar figure rather than a share count. It measures how much money actually changes hands. Opening gap. The distance between a session's opening price and the previous session's close. Where a trading halt falls between the two, the gap spans the halt and is a reopening rather than an overnight move. Tick. The minimum price step a security is allowed to move on the exchange. The ASX sets it in bands, so a cheaper stock moves in smaller steps and a dearer one in larger. Share consolidation. Replacing a number of shares with fewer shares of proportionally higher value. Sunstone replaced every 30 shares with 1. The value of the holding does not change. Back-adjusted. A price history rewritten so a consolidation does not leave a step in the line. Every price before the event is multiplied, and every volume divided, by the same ratio. Placement. New shares issued to selected institutional and sophisticated investors, usually at a discount to the market price, to raise cash quickly. Scoping study. The first and least precise of the study stages an explorer works through, a broad test of whether a deposit could be mined at a profit. Its numbers carry wide error bars and it is not a decision to build anything. Inferred resource. The least certain of the categories a mineral resource is reported in, estimated from enough drilling to be confident the material is there but not enough to be confident of its tonnes and grade. References and sources The bracketed numbers through the piece point here. Every announcement below is on the ASX company announcements platform under the code STM and can be opened directly. Prices are stated as at 21 September 2026. Figures 01 to 05 are original Samso illustrations drawn from the price data, not company material, and where a calculation is Samso's, the caption says so. [R1] Sunstone Metals Limited, "Share consolidation to assist ongoing capital management and corporate discussions", ASX announcement, 22 January 2026, indexed on the announcements platform as "Share Consolidation". It states the ratio as 30-for-1 and its indicative timetable gives 23 February 2026 as the effective date and 24 February as the last day of pre-consolidation trading. PDF [R2] Sunstone Metals Limited, "Share consolidation completed", ASX announcement, 6 March 2026. PDF [R3] Sunstone Metals Limited, "Strategic resources investor DGR Global to take 10% stake in Sunstone as part of $10 million equity raising", ASX announcement, 29 June 2026, indexed on the announcements platform as "Sunstone raises $10M in share placement", which is the headline quoted in TABLE 02 and FIG. 02. It prices the placement at $0.175 a share, "representing a 14.6% discount to the last close price of $0.205". PDF [R4] Sunstone Metals Limited, "Drilling returns 176m gold-copper intersection", ASX announcement, 18 August 2026. PDF [R5] Sunstone Metals Limited, "Drilling hits exceptional high-grade zone", ASX announcement, 9 September 2026. PDF [R6] ASX Limited, "Australian equities trading", minimum price steps table for equity securities, giving 0.1c up to 10c, 0.5c from 10c up to A$2.00, and 1c from A$2.00 and above. Page last modified 14 July 2026, retrieved 21 September 2026. Page [R7] Yahoo Finance, daily price and volume bars for STM.AX, the data provider's symbol for ASX code STM, 20 September 2024 to 21 September 2026, retrieved 21 September 2026. The series is consolidation-adjusted by the provider. [R8] J. Welles Wilder Jr, New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems (1978), the original definition of the Average Directional Index. The 20 and 25 thresholds used in this piece are later market convention and are not Wilder's. [R9] ASX Limited, ASX Centre Point customer brochure, March 2025, which states that non-displayed liquidity is "matched at the mid-point of the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO)". PDF [R10] Curtis Faith, Way of the Turtle (2007), the account by one of the original Turtle traders of the system's two breakout windows, 20 sessions and 55 sessions. [R11] Sunstone Metals Limited, "Bramaderos Gold-Copper Project Scoping Study", ASX announcement, 21 April 2026. PDF [R12] Sunstone Metals Limited, "Retraction: Bramaderos Gold-Copper Scoping Study", ASX announcement, 11 May 2026, indexed on the announcements platform as "Retraction announcement of scoping study". PDF [R13] Sunstone Metals Limited, Annual Report 2026, lodged with the ASX on 18 September 2026. Note 13, Contributed equity, carries the consolidation line. The ASX Additional Information section, shareholdings as at 31 August 2026, carries the substantial holding. The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. 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About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insights from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Coffee with Samso, Samso Insights, Samso News and Samso Research are four ways into the same work. Interviews, long-form research, short takes on announcements and company-specific studies. Every one of them is about how to think about investing rather than what to buy. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies Samso News is independent research commentary for general information only. Nothing in this article is financial product advice, and it does not take into account any reader's objectives, financial situation or needs. Figures are drawn from public sources believed reliable at the stated dates but are not guaranteed. 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Samso Market Update | Friday, 2 October 2026 | Market close 4:30pm AEST The S&P/ASX 200 rose 67.7 points, or 0.79%, to 8,682.1 on the ASX today, Friday 2 October. Technology was the strongest sector, up 4.45%. The index fell 174.9 points on Thursday, so Friday's rise recovered about 39% of that fall (FIG. 01). The All Ordinaries, which covers the 500 largest listed companies, rose 60.3 points, or 0.69%, to 8,854.7. The Small Ordinaries, which covers companies ranked 101 to 300 by size, rose 17.7 points, or 0.53%, to 3,326.4. ASX today: Key Highlights The S&P/ASX 200 closed up 67.7 points, or 0.79%, at 8,682.1. ASX 200 futures had been up 45 points before the open. A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell the index at a set date. Nine of the 11 sectors rose. Information technology rose 4.45%. Real estate fell 1.65% and health care fell 1.10%. Across 1,743 ASX-listed companies, 576 rose, 554 fell and 613 were unchanged. Megaport (ASX: MP1) rose 10.3% to $22.34. Life360 (ASX: 360) rose 7.0% to $20.40. WiseTech Global (ASX: WTC) rose 6.7% to $33.43. Mamba Exploration (ASX: M24) rose 57.8% to 7.1 cents on the day it released an investor presentation and notices of proposed share issues, which tell the market a company plans to issue new shares. Iron ore fell 1.3% to US$91.10 a tonne, according to ABC News. Brent crude was about US$101.72 a barrel at 4:28pm AEST. ASX 200 today, sectors and US bond yields A Treasury is a US government bond. A bond's yield is the yearly return from buying it at today's price, and when yields rise, bond prices fall. ABC News reported that the local market was supported by Wall Street's recovery from early losses as US Treasury yields retreated from multi-decade highs. The US 10-year Treasury yield finished the US session at 5.24%, down from 5.29%, as set out in this morning's edition below. The S&P/ASX 200 Information Technology index rose 4.45% to 1,742.7 (FIG. 02). Energy rose 1.48%, materials 1.14%, consumer staples 1.05% and financials 1.03%. Consumer discretionary rose 0.85%, utilities 0.73%, communication services 0.54% and industrials 0.45%. Real estate fell 1.65% and health care fell 1.10%. Index and sector figures are from Yahoo Finance at 4:18pm AEST. No market-sensitive Australian economic data was scheduled for the session, and the ABC News live blog recorded no Reserve Bank of Australia announcement. The ASX biggest movers follow in Samso's four size bands (TABLE 01). The bands are Samso's own and are set by market capitalisation, which is the value of all of a company's shares. The Small Caps band is separate from the Small Ordinaries index. Turnover is the dollar value of shares traded in the session. Blue Chips (above A$1 billion) The ASX top gainers in this band were technology companies. Elsight (ASX: ELS) rose 13.0% to $5.32 on turnover of about A$11.2 million. Megaport rose 10.3% to $22.34 on about A$51.4 million. Neither has made an ASX announcement since Thursday evening. On Tuesday Megaport released "Megaport Secures New AI Infrastructure Contracts". Data#3 (ASX: DTL) rose 7.8% to $13.61. It released a first-half trading update at midday on Thursday, and ABC News reported that the company raised its profit forecast. Life360 rose 7.0% to $20.40 and WiseTech Global rose 6.7% to $33.43 on about A$56.1 million, the largest turnover among the band's top gainers. Life360 and WiseTech have made no ASX announcement since Thursday evening. Among the ASX top losers in this band, EQ Resources (ASX: EQR) fell 10.1% to 40 cents on about A$22.3 million. Macmahon Holdings (ASX: MAH) fell 9.9% to $1.00. Neither has made an ASX announcement since Thursday evening. DPM Metals (ASX: DPM) fell 8.4% to $57.41 on the day it announced a decision of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The release was lodged at 8:16am AEST, before the open. Benz Mining (ASX: BNZ) fell 8.4% to $4.70, with no ASX announcement since Thursday evening. Mid Caps (A$500 million to A$1 billion) Hansen Technologies (ASX: HSN) rose 9.6% to $3.42 on the day a substantial holder notice was lodged. A substantial holder is an investor with 5% or more of a company's shares. SHAPE Australia (ASX: SHA) rose 8.3% to $8.12 on about A$17.2 million, with no ASX announcement since Thursday evening. Artrya (ASX: AYA) rose 7.9% to $3.70 on the day it announced a commercial agreement with Huntsville Hospital Health System. Nuix (ASX: NXL) and Black Cat Syndicate (ASX: BC8) each rose 7.2%, to $1.93 and 74.5 cents. Nuix has made no ASX announcement since Thursday evening. Black Cat lodged a director's interest notice. BMC Minerals (ASX: BMC) fell 3.8% to $2.75. Imricor Medical Systems (ASX: IMR) and PMET Resources (ASX: PMT) each fell 3.5%, to $1.505 and 41.5 cents. AIC Mines (ASX: A1M) fell 3.3% to 87 cents. BMC, Imricor and AIC have made no ASX announcement since Thursday evening. PMET lodged a routine statement of securities on issue. ASX Small Caps (A$150 million to A$500 million) Prospect Resources (ASX: PSC) rose 14.6% to 23.5 cents, with no ASX announcement since Thursday evening. On Thursday morning it reported copper drilling results from Nyungu Central. Amaero (ASX: 3DA) rose 9.4% to 17.5 cents. Praemium (ASX: PPS) rose 9.1% to 60 cents on the day it announced a change of chief executive. Tivan (ASX: TVN) rose 8.3% to 19.5 cents and Appen (ASX: APX) rose 7.3% to $1.25. Amaero, Tivan and Appen have made no ASX announcement since Thursday evening. Vitrafy Life Sciences (ASX: VFY) fell 8.0% to $3.56 and Mayfield Group Holdings (ASX: MYG) fell 7.1% to $2.10, and neither has made an ASX announcement since Thursday evening. Cobre (ASX: CBE) fell 6.8% to 34.5 cents on the day it announced the completion of an A$90 million institutional capital raising. A capital raising is a sale of new shares for cash, and institutional means the buyers were professional investors such as funds. Healius (ASX: HLS) fell 6.0% to 39.5 cents, with no ASX announcement since Thursday evening. Micro Caps (below A$150 million) Mamba Exploration rose 57.8% to 7.1 cents on turnover of about A$2.25 million. Its market capitalisation was A$22 million at Thursday's close. Before the open it lodged an investor presentation and three notices of proposed share issues. Cannindah Resources (ASX: CAE) rose 17.4% to 2.7 cents and Nexsen (ASX: NXN) rose 13.0% to 13 cents, and neither has made an ASX announcement since Thursday evening. Yandal Resources (ASX: YRL) fell 16.0% to 10.5 cents and EAU Lithium (ASX: EAU) fell 12.9% to 13.5 cents, and neither has made an ASX announcement since Thursday evening. Peregrine Gold (ASX: PGD) fell 9.1% to 15 cents on the day it announced a A$2.25 million capital raising to fund gold and iron exploration. Shares priced below one cent are left out of this band. The smallest price change allowed, 0.1 of a cent, moves them by 10% or more. Commodities and Currency Futures prices are at about 4:28pm AEST, and each change is measured against the previous session's close (TABLE 02). The contract month is the month in which a futures contract falls due. Samso Concluding Comments Technology was the strongest of the 11 sectors, up 4.45%. ABC News linked the session to the easing in US Treasury yields overnight. Brent crude remained above US$100 a barrel. US jobs figures for September are due at 10:30pm AEST tonight, and Monday is the first ASX session after the release. Daylight saving starts in Sydney on Sunday, so from Monday the 4:00pm Sydney close is 1:00pm in Perth. General information only. This is not financial advice. The pre-market edition from earlier today follows below. The previous edition was ASX today, Thursday 1 October 2026. Samso Market Update | Friday, 2 October 2026 | Pre-market 9:45am AEST Futures point to a higher open on the ASX today, one day after the S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.99%. A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell the index at a set date, and its overnight move is the usual guide to where shares open. ASX 200 futures were up 45 points, or 0.52%, at 8,678 at 8:36am AEST. The S&P/ASX 200 closed down 174.9 points at 8,614.4 on Thursday. The All Ordinaries, which covers the 500 largest listed companies, fell 1.95% to 8,794.4. The Small Ordinaries, which covers companies ranked 101 to 300 by size, fell 1.78% to 3,308.7. The Australian dollar was at approximately 69.3 US cents at 8:45am AEST. ASX today: Key Highlights ASX 200 futures were up 45 points, or 0.52%, at 8:36am AEST, after Thursday's 1.99% fall to 8,614.4. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury, a US government bond, eased to 5.24% from 5.29%. During the session it touched its highest level since 2002. Wall Street closed slightly higher (FIG. 01). The S&P 500 rose 0.19% and the Dow Jones and Nasdaq each rose 0.04%. Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 3.3% on Thursday. London's FTSE 100 fell 1.68%. Brent crude for December delivery rose approximately 4.5% to approximately US$102.50 a barrel. US jobs figures are due at 10:30pm AEST tonight, after the local market has closed. Wall Street overnight The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 20.51 points, or 0.04%, to 50,926.56. The S&P 500 rose 14.91 points, or 0.19%, to 7,666.45, which Market Index reported as the end of a three-session run of falls. The Nasdaq Composite rose 10.53 points, or 0.04%, to 26,871.60. The Russell 2000, an index of smaller US companies, rose 0.35% to 2,806.63. The US 10-year Treasury yield finished at 5.237%, down approximately 6 basis points from 5.293% (FIG. 02). A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point. A bond's yield is the yearly return from buying it at today's price, and when yields rise, bond prices fall. TheStreet reported the yield reached approximately 5.33% earlier in the session, its highest level since April 2002. Market Index reported that the main US indices recovered early losses once yields eased. Two US data releases came out during the session. The ISM manufacturing index, a monthly survey of factory activity, was 54.5 against a forecast of 55.0. Its prices paid measure rose to 77.9 against a forecast of 73.0, according to Market Index. Initial jobless claims were 197,000. Japan The Nikkei 225 closed at 68,956.72 on Thursday, up 2,203 points, or 3.3%. News On Japan attributed the rise to buying in semiconductor and artificial intelligence shares following the earnings outlook from US chipmaker Micron Technology. The same report said the Tankan, the Bank of Japan's quarterly survey of business confidence, was at its strongest level in eight years. The US dollar bought approximately 158.06 yen at 8:46am AEST, against 157.56 in the previous session. London and Europe The FTSE 100 closed down 177.73 points, or 1.68%, at 10,428.27. Germany's DAX fell 1.03% to 24,939.35. France's CAC 40 fell 1.62% to 7,835.31. Currencies The Australian dollar was at approximately 69.3 US cents at 8:45am AEST. It was 69.46 US cents in the previous session and 70.16 US cents three sessions ago. The US dollar index, which measures the US dollar against six major currencies, rose 0.58% to 102.04. Market Index reported this as its fourth daily gain in a row. The US dollar bought approximately 158.06 yen. Commodities Prices are futures prices at approximately 8:37am AEST (TABLE 01). The contract month is the month in which a futures contract falls due. Market Index reported that Brent moved above US$102 a barrel (FIG. 03) following comments by US President Donald Trump on potential strikes on Iran. TheStreet reported that Chinese refiners had suspended fuel exports. Samso Insight: where the gold price settles before its next move Today's diary 11:30am AEST. The Australian Bureau of Statistics releases Deaths, Australia for 2025. No market-sensitive Australian data is scheduled. 7:00pm AEST. Eurozone preliminary inflation for September. 10:30pm AEST. US non-farm payrolls and the unemployment rate for September. Daylight saving starts in Sydney on Sunday. From Monday the ASX opens at 10:00am AEDT, which is 7:00am in Perth. Samso Concluding Comments ABC News attributed Thursday's fall on the ASX to higher oil prices pushing bond yields up around the world. In the US session that followed, the 10-year yield touched its highest level since April 2002, then eased to 5.24%. ASX 200 futures rose 45 points, approximately a quarter of Thursday's 174.9-point fall. December Brent rose approximately 4.5%. The US jobs figures are due at 10:30pm AEST, after the ASX has closed. Monday is the first ASX session after the release. General information only. This is not financial advice. Previous edition: ASX today, Thursday 1 October 2026

The Australian sharemarket’s sharp reversal on Thursday, October 1, reflects a difficult combination: rising global borrowing costs, persistent inflation, concerns about expensive financial assets and company-specific setbacks. By afternoon trading, the S&P/ASX 200 was down 157.4 points, or 1.79%, at 8,631.90, having fallen as low as 8,613.20. The decline had more than erased Wednesday’s 80-point advance (Figure 1). The Reserve Bank’s latest Financial Stability Review brought those broader vulnerabilities into focus. It warned that global and operational risks are mounting, while maintaining that Australia’s financial system remains resilient. For investors asking why ASX shares are falling, the explanation extends beyond the prospect of another Australian interest-rate increase. Long-term financing costs and the price investors are willing to pay for earnings are also changing. Key highlights Higher bond yields are pressuring equity valuations and increasing financing costs. Wednesday’s inflation relief has faded, although the latest figures did temper expectations for another immediate RBA increase. The RBA has highlighted global financial vulnerabilities, including risks associated with AI investment and borrowing. Property and smaller companies remain exposed to tighter funding conditions. Individual announcements are producing divergent outcomes, showing that the sell-off has several contributing factors. Rising bond yields are the central pressure The overnight increase in US Treasury yields provides an important explanation for the weaker Australian session. The US 10-year yield reached approximately 5.29%, while the 30-year yield climbed to around 5.64%. Stronger economic activity and concerns about government borrowing helped sustain upward pressure on long-term yields despite a softer-than-expected US inflation reading. Higher yields affect shares through both valuations and business costs. When government bonds offer higher returns, investors generally require more compensation for holding equities. They may therefore pay less for the same expected stream of company earnings. Businesses also face higher financing costs when existing borrowing matures or new projects require funding. This helps explain why Australian shares can weaken even when expectations for the next RBA meeting become less aggressive. International bond markets influence financial conditions independently of the domestic cash rate. Why Wednesday’s rally did not last Wednesday’s advance followed inflation figures that were less alarming than investors had feared. Headline annual inflation increased to 4%, but underlying inflation remained at 3.6% for a third consecutive month. Money markets reduced the probability of a November rate increase, supporting a broad rally in which all 11 ASX sectors finished higher. ABC News That improvement in expectations did not remove the existing burden of higher rates. The RBA had already lifted the cash rate to 4.60% on September 29, and inflation remained above its target range. The distinction matters: a reduced likelihood of another near-term increase offers relief, but companies and households still operate under restrictive financial conditions. Thursday’s reversal suggests that the improvement in domestic sentiment was insufficient to withstand renewed pressure from overseas borrowing costs. What the RBA’s risk warning means for shares The Financial Stability Review identified vulnerabilities that could amplify a shift in investor confidence. The RBA highlighted low risk premiums in global equity and credit markets, increasing exposure to the AI investment boom, and growing use of borrowing to fund that investment. It also identified financing arrangements that can create less transparent connections between companies. These concerns matter because highly valued assets can fall sharply if earnings expectations disappoint or investors reassess the risks they are accepting. For the ASX, the potential transmission channels include weaker international markets, more expensive funding and reduced willingness to finance new developments. Australian companies do not need direct exposure to AI to be affected by a broad withdrawal from risk. The review provides relevant context rather than proof that its publication caused Thursday’s decline. Selling was already evident during the morning. The RBA also supplied an important counterbalance: Australian banks remain well positioned to lend through a downturn, and most mortgage borrowers retain capacity to manage more difficult conditions. RBA Why property and small caps are vulnerable Listed property was among the weaker areas, with the A-REIT index down 2.73% in the early-afternoon snapshot (Figure 2). Property trusts face potential pressure from refinancing costs, the returns investors demand from rental income and changes in asset valuations. The effect varies according to debt maturity dates, hedging and rental growth. Smaller companies can face similar financing pressures. Explorers, developers and emerging technology businesses often require additional capital before they generate sustainable cash flow. A lower share price can make an equity raising more dilutive, while expensive debt can reduce a project’s expected return. The Small Ordinaries was down 1.68% at 3,311.90 in early-afternoon trading (Figure 3) was a substantial fall, although smaller than the ASX 200’s decline at the same stage. The weakness therefore extended across company sizes. Company developments are adding to the volatility Individual announcements also help explain why some shares have fallen much more sharply than the index. Liontown Limited (ASX: LTR) was down 11.83% in early-afternoon trading, following approval of a $389 million Kathleen Valley expansion and increased capital expenditure guidance. The expansion offers production growth, but its spending requirements are relevant in a market increasingly sensitive to funding and execution risk. www.google.com Elsewhere, Lynas Rare Earths Limited (ASX: LYC) fell 7.48%, while Meteoric Resources Limited (ASX: MEI) gained 47.06% after Lynas proposed an approximately $968 million all-share acquisition. Those early-afternoon moves illustrate how takeover terms can produce very different outcomes for buyers and targets. Samso Concluding Comments The ASX decline reflects pressure on the assumptions underpinning share valuations: borrowing costs, future earnings and access to capital. The useful distinction for investors is between a falling share price and a deteriorating business. Cash reserves, refinancing obligations, project expenditure and earnings resilience help determine whether a company can withstand tighter conditions. The RBA’s assessment supports that measured approach. Financial vulnerabilities are increasing, but Australia’s capacity to absorb shocks remains an important part of the picture. The vocabulary, in plain English S&P/ASX 200 An index of the 200 largest companies listed on the ASX, weighted by market value. It is the most quoted measure of the Australian sharemarket. Bond yield The annual return an investor earns by buying a government bond at today's price and holding it until it matures. When bond prices fall, yields rise. US 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields The yields on US government bonds that mature in 10 and 30 years. They act as a benchmark for long-term borrowing costs around the world. Cash rate The interest rate the Reserve Bank of Australia sets on overnight loans between banks. It flows through to mortgage, business and deposit rates. Headline and underlying inflation Headline inflation is the change in prices across the whole basket of goods and services. Underlying inflation removes the most volatile price moves to show the trend. The RBA targets inflation of 2 to 3 per cent. Financial Stability Review A report the Reserve Bank publishes twice a year on the risks facing Australia's financial system. Risk premium The extra return investors demand for holding a riskier asset, such as shares or company debt, instead of a government bond. A low risk premium means investors are accepting less reward for the risk they take. A-REIT An Australian real estate investment trust. It is a listed fund that owns property such as offices, shopping centres or warehouses and pays out most of its rental income. Small Ordinaries The S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries index, which tracks the companies ranked 101 to 300 by market value. It is the standard measure of ASX small caps. Dilutive equity raising When a company issues new shares to raise money, each existing share owns a smaller part of the company. The lower the share price, the more new shares are needed to raise the same amount. The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple. Cut through the noise and spotlight what matters. Genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Investors can explore our four core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News Samso Research There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember, digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiative for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer This article is general information only. 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Coffee with Samso, Samso Insights, Samso News and Samso Research are four ways into the same work. Interviews, long-form research, short takes on announcements and company-specific studies. Every one of them is about how to think about investing rather than what to buy. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies Samso News is independent research commentary for general information only. Nothing in this article is financial product advice, and it does not take into account any reader's objectives, financial situation or needs. Figures are drawn from public sources believed reliable at the stated dates but are not guaranteed. Market-sensitive numbers change daily. Samso or associated parties may hold positions in, or have commercial arrangements with, companies mentioned. Seek professional advice before making investment decisions. © Samso 2026 · samso.com.au

Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM) is testing whether the scandium at its Murga deposit in central New South Wales can be dissolved out of the rock at ordinary atmospheric pressure. On 28 September 2026 the company announced that the metallurgical study has grown from one type of test to three, running side by side [R1]. Results are due between October and November 2026. Samso's Insight on the scandium market covers the wider context. Samso has covered Rimfire since April 2026, and the earlier posts are listed after the Samso Concluding Comments. THE SOURCE DOCUMENT Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited, "Rimfire accelerates Murga scandium pathway with expanded metallurgical study", ASX announcement, 28 September 2026, five pages, authorised for release by the Board. Read the announcement on the ASX platform [R1]. Announcement Metallurgical testing is the laboratory work that shows whether a metal can be recovered from the rock, how much of it comes out, and how much acid, heat and time it takes. Rimfire has added column leach tests and agitated tank leach tests to the long-term bottle roll tests it started in June [R1] [R3]. The company says the data from all three will show whether scandium can be extracted from Murga's low-iron rock using atmospheric leaching. It describes this route as potentially less complex and less capital-intensive than the high-pressure route its neighbours are studying. The study is guided by Boyd Willis, Rimfire's Metallurgical Process Consultant and the Competent Person for the metallurgy [R1]. Murga is in the Fifield district, about 70 kilometres north-west of Parkes. It is next to Sunrise Energy Metals' (ASX: SRL) Syerston deposit and a short distance from Rio Tinto's Burra deposit (FIG. 01). Rimfire reports an Inferred Mineral Resource at Murga of 56.1 million tonnes at 138 parts per million scandium, at a 100 ppm cut-off, containing 11,900 tonnes of scandium oxide [R2]. Parts per million is grams per tonne, so each tonne of rock holds about 138 grams of scandium on average. Inferred is the lowest of the three confidence levels in the JORC Code, the Australian standard for reporting what is in the ground, and it rests on limited drilling. Highlights The study now runs three tests in parallel. They are long-term bottle roll leaching over 160 to 180 days, column leaching and agitated tank leaching [R1]. TABLE 01 sets them side by side. The column tests are at Electric Metals Pte Ltd, a Philippines-based facility that the company says specialises in atmospheric leaching of laterite nickel cobalt ores. Rimfire says Electric Metals is running them at no cost because of a gap in its schedule. A 10 kilogram sub-sample was being sent to Simulus Laboratories in Perth for the tank leach tests when the release was written [R1]. The column and tank leach samples come from diamond drillhole FI2679, which cut 26.3 metres downhole at 248 parts per million scandium from surface [R1] (TABLE 02). A bottle roll update is targeted for early to mid October 2026, column results for early November and tank results for late November. A desktop financial study follows once all three are in. Murga's Iron Content, Atmospheric Leaching and HPAL At Murga the scandium is held in laterite and saprolite. These are the soft, clay-rich layers that form near the surface when the original rock weathers over a very long time. At Murga this weathered blanket is up to 45 metres thick and lies over weathered ultramafic rocks, including pyroxenite [R1]. There are two broad ways to get scandium out of this kind of material with acid. High Pressure Acid Leaching, known as HPAL, dissolves the ore in acid inside a pressure vessel at high temperature. It is the route Rimfire says other Fifield deposits are contemplating, naming Syerston, Burra and Flemington [R1]. Atmospheric leaching does the job at ordinary air pressure, in a heap, a vat or an open tank. The equipment is simpler, but it only works if the rock releases its scandium without the high temperature and pressure of an autoclave. Iron is the reason Rimfire thinks Murga may suit the simpler route. The company reports an average of about 16 per cent iron in Murga's scandium-bearing rock. It compares that with 34 per cent iron at Rio Tinto's Burra deposit, a figure it sources to its February and April 2026 releases and a December 2018 announcement by Platina Resources, which held Burra at the time [R1] [R2]. Rimfire's June release describes iron as a major acid consumer, and reported that relatively little iron dissolved during the first tests [R3]. On the company's reasoning, rock with less iron should use less acid. Iron is not the only acid consumer, though. Murga's scandium is in and above weathered serpentinised ultramafic rock [R1], and in laterite leaching the magnesium in such rock also uses up acid. That last point is Samso's general explanation. The release gives no acid consumption figure. What Published Research Says About Leaching Low-Iron Laterite Rimfire's case rests on one idea. Rock with less iron should give up its metal more easily at atmospheric pressure. Published research supports a related idea. Metal leaches more readily from clay-rich saprolite than from iron-rich limonite. Most of it comes from nickel laterites, which are the same kind of deeply weathered rock and which can carry scandium alongside nickel and cobalt. TABLE 03 sets out four studies. The broadest is a review by R.G. McDonald and B.I. Whittington, "Atmospheric acid leaching of nickel laterites review", published in the journal Hydrometallurgy in 2008. It brought together the published work on leaching these ores with sulphuric acid at ordinary pressure. It found that nickel leaches more readily from clay-rich saprolite and high-magnesium ores than from iron-rich limonite, where the metal is held in the iron mineral goethite [R6]. Murga's upper scandium layer is clay-dominant, and its host rock averages about 16 per cent iron [R1]. On that measure Murga looks closer to the easier ore type. That is Samso's comparison. The review does not discuss Murga. The same review lists the problems. Heap leaching of laterite uses a lot of acid, the heaped rock can break down, and the acid dissolves iron and magnesium as well as the metal being recovered [R6]. Rimfire cites a heap leach trial at Çaldağ in Turkey as support. Anne Oxley, Nursun Sirvanci and Simon Purkiss described European Nickel's demonstration heaps there in a 2007 paper in the journal Metalurgija. The ore in the first heap averaged 24.35 per cent iron, against about 16 per cent at Murga. Its first heap ran for 548 days and recovered 79.4 per cent of the nickel and 82.7 per cent of the cobalt, while only 30 per cent of the iron dissolved. The paper calculates acid use of more than 500 kilograms per tonne of dry ore [R7]. So heap leaching at atmospheric pressure has worked on laterite, over a long time and at a high acid cost, on rock with more iron than Murga. For scandium itself, a 2019 study by Mathieu Chassé, William Griffin, Suzanne O'Reilly and Georges Calas in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta traced how scandium moves as Australian laterites form. It found that in the saprolite, scandium is held in smectite clays and attached to the surface of iron oxyhydroxide minerals [R8]. So the scandium is inside the structure of the clays and on the surface of the iron minerals. The paper does not measure how easily acid releases either, and it does not discuss Murga. A 2026 study led by M. Fahrurrozi in the journal Transition Metal Chemistry leached an Indonesian limonite, an iron-rich laterite, with sulphuric acid at atmospheric pressure. It recovered up to 92.94 per cent of the scandium, at 90°C and very strong acid [R9]. That is a different type of ore, leached under harsher conditions than a heap. It shows scandium can come out of laterite without an autoclave. It does not show that Murga's will. None of this research uses Murga rock, which is why the company is testing its own samples. What it shows is that the ore-type difference behind the low-iron argument is recognised in the metallurgy of these ores, and that its main risk, high acid use, is also well documented. What the Bottle Roll Tests Have Measured So Far A bottle roll test tumbles finely ground rock with acid in a sealed bottle on powered rollers (PLATE 01). It is a low-cost early test of whether a metal will dissolve [R1]. Rimfire's first tests ran for 14 days at room temperature on two pulverised samples of about 3.5 kilograms each, one of laterite and one of saprolite [R3]. A heap uses coarser crushed rock, so a bottle roll shows what can dissolve rather than what a heap would recover. The June release said recoveries of 60 to 90 per cent could potentially be achieved if the extraction rate held over a longer period [R3]. On 13 August 2026 Rimfire issued a clarification at the ASX's request. Rimfire said the clarification was provided in accordance with Listing Rule 5.7. That rule sets out what a mining company must include when it reports exploration results. The measured recoveries after 14 days were 11.3 per cent for saprolite and 10.5 per cent for laterite [R4]. The 60 to 90 per cent range came from a straight line fitted to the 14-day data, leaving out the rapid extraction at the start, and extended out to 200 days. The company said a definitive conclusion from 14 days of data would be "premature and potentially misleading" [R4]. It also cited published research in which European and Western Australian saprolite ores reached 70 to 80 per cent extraction over extended leaching. Those are other deposits, not Murga. The longer bottle roll tests that the new release refers to began in June and run for 160 to 180 days with weekly sampling [R3]. Counting from the 23 June release, an update in early to mid October would come at least 100 to 115 days into those tests. That is Samso's arithmetic from the release dates. The company has not published an exact start date. FIG. 02 sets the dates out in order, from the April resource to the tests still to report. Qualifications and Open Questions The column and tank samples come from one drillhole, FI2679 [R1]. So did the first bottle roll samples [R3]. The releases do not say which hole supplied the long-term bottle roll samples. The resource the tests are meant to inform is 56.1 million tonnes. One hole can show how that part of the deposit behaves, but it cannot show whether the rest of the deposit behaves the same way. That would need material from more holes across the deposit. The column and tank samples are saprolite [R1], so laterite is not part of the new tests. The release gives no scandium grade or iron content for the test samples. FI2679's upper interval grades 248 ppm scandium, against a resource average of 138 ppm [R1] [R2]. The 23 June release said Rimfire may run a column test, depending on the longer bottle roll data. It described such a test as using 50 kilograms at ambient temperature and low acidity over 3 to 6 months [R3]. The 28 September release describes two columns of 40 kilograms each, run at different acid strengths and flow rates over about 30 days [R1]. Both are quoted here as published. The new release does not explain the difference, and the columns were being loaded before the longer bottle roll results are out. Atmospheric refers to pressure only. The tank leach runs at 90 to 95°C, so it needs heat. The release gives no recovery target, no acid consumption figure and no cost estimate, and it describes the desktop financial study only as an evaluation of the commercial viability of atmospheric leaching at Murga, with no release date. The release text does not discuss ownership, although its map (FIG. 01) marks the Fifield Project as GPR earning 50.1 per cent. Murga is split across two of Rimfire's projects. The April release places the deposit on exploration licence EL8935 in the Fifield Project, where Golden Plains Resources can earn up to a 50.1 per cent interest [R2]. Rimfire's 8 July release says the northwestern portion of Murga lies within the Avondale Project, where Rimfire holds 60 per cent and Golden Plains 40 per cent [R5]. An earn-in is a deal where a partner gains a share of a project by spending money on it. Under the Fifield agreement Golden Plains would also fund development of a mine, including Rimfire's share, which Rimfire would repay from operating cash flow [R2]. The 11,900 tonnes of scandium oxide is a figure for the whole deposit. The releases reviewed here do not say how it divides between the two projects. Leadership Commentary Executive Chair Bronwyn Barnes described the expanded study as "an important development in our understanding of the Murga deposit" and said that "the deposit's low-iron host rocks represent a key point of difference to the other deposits in the area" [R1]. She also said scandium demand is accelerating across advanced manufacturing, AI data centres, defence and aerospace. That is the company's view of the market. The release gives no figures for it. Near-term Milestones to Watch Early to mid October 2026. Update on the long-term bottle roll tests, the first update since the 14-day results. Early November 2026. Column leach results from Electric Metals. Late November 2026. Agitated tank leach results from Simulus. After that. A desktop financial study on atmospheric leaching at Murga, with no date given. Samso Concluding Comments Rimfire has moved the Murga metallurgy from one type of test to three, with a date set for each result. By the end of November the company expects to have given an update on the bottle roll tests and reported results from the column and tank leach tests. The release itself describes the testing, the timetable and the laboratories, and the results are still to come. The company describes the tank leach as its alternative atmospheric route if heap or vat leaching does not extract enough scandium [R1]. The columns check for slumping and loss of permeability, the risk the release names for heap leaching. Samso's 30 June piece on Murga's low-iron scandium reported the 60 to 90 per cent projection in its second paragraph. The October update is the next scheduled report on the bottle roll tests since the 14-day results. In the company's favour, it has put a date on each result and kept a heated tank test in the program as an alternative. Electric Metals is running both columns at no cost to Rimfire [R1]. SAMSO TAKE Low iron is Rimfire's main argument for Murga, and in my opinion it is the right thing to be testing first. A scandium deposit that can avoid an autoclave has a very different capital bill from one that cannot. But the market has already seen a projection that the measured figure later qualified, so I would read the October bottle roll update for the measured recovery at that day, not a projection. If the curve is still climbing at around 100 days, the argument gets stronger. If it has flattened well short of 60 per cent, the columns and the tank leach will carry more of the case. Which of those two will the October update show? THE OTHER WAY TO READ THIS A more cautious reading is that the release adds a timetable but no new data. The only measured recoveries so far are 10.5 and 11.3 per cent, from two 14-day bottle roll tests. A column test described in June as taking 3 to 6 months is now expected to take about 30 days, and the company's August release says heap leaching of similar ores typically takes 100 to 250 days [R4]. On that view, a good November result would still describe one drillhole and a short test. Previous Samso Coverage of Rimfire Pacific Mining Every earlier Samso post on Rimfire, newest first, followed by the two Samso Insights on the scandium market. RIMFIRE PACIFIC MINING 11 AUG 2026 "Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX:RIM) Strengthens Leadership as Scandium Strategy Advances". Bronwyn Barnes appointed Executive Chair alongside a $2.3 million raising at $0.008 a share. 30 JUN 2026 "Rimfire Pacific Mining: Murga's Low-Iron Scandium Points to a Cheaper Route". The first 14-day bottle roll results and the 60 to 90 per cent projection, before the August clarification. 15 JUN 2026 "Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM) to Secure 60% of Avondale Scandium Project as Seismic Survey Kicks Off at Fifield". Rimfire moves to 60 per cent of Avondale as Golden Plains moves to vest 40 per cent, and a seismic survey begins at Fifield. 14 MAY 2026 "Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited – Fifield District Scandium Resource Builder Investigating Lower-Cost Leaching Pathway at Murga". The low-iron argument and the start of the metallurgical study at Simulus. 14 APR 2026 "Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited – Murga Scandium Mineral Resource Increases". The 56.1 million tonne Murga Inferred resource and Rimfire's place among the Fifield scandium companies. THE SCANDIUM MARKET 28 AUG 2026 "The Scandium Market in 2026 - Does a lower scandium price make the investment case stronger?". Samso Insight on scandium prices and demand, with Rimfire as a case study including the August clarification and the Golden Plains earn-in. 6 APR 2026 "The Scandium Story - A Small-Market Metal with Outsized Leverage in Lightweight Alloys and Clean-Energy Ceramics". Samso Insight on where scandium comes from and what it is used for. The vocabulary, in plain English Scandium and scandium oxide Scandium is a light metal used mainly to strengthen aluminium alloys and in solid oxide fuel cells. It is usually sold as scandium oxide, and resources are often quoted in oxide terms. Parts per million (ppm) Grams per tonne. 138 ppm scandium means about 138 grams of scandium in each tonne of rock. Mineral Resource, Inferred An estimate of how much metal is in the ground. Inferred is the lowest confidence level, based on limited drilling. It is not an Ore Reserve and carries no mine plan. JORC Code The Australian standard that governs how companies report exploration results, resources and reserves. Laterite and saprolite Soft, clay-rich layers formed near the surface when rock weathers over a very long time. Laterite is the upper layer, saprolite is below it. Metallurgical testing Laboratory work that shows whether a metal can be recovered from the rock, how much, and at what cost in chemicals, heat and time. Limonite and goethite Limonite is the iron-rich upper part of a laterite. Goethite is the iron oxyhydroxide mineral that makes up much of it. Smectite A family of clay minerals that forms as rock weathers. It can hold metals such as scandium within its structure. HPAL High Pressure Acid Leaching. Dissolving ore in acid inside a pressure vessel, called an autoclave, at high temperature. Rimfire describes it as more complex and more capital-intensive than atmospheric leaching. Atmospheric leaching Dissolving metal out of ore at ordinary air pressure, in a heap, a vat or an open tank. The word refers to pressure, not temperature. Bottle roll test Finely ground rock and acid tumbled in a sealed bottle on rollers. A low-cost first test of whether a metal dissolves. Column leach test Crushed rock loaded into a vertical pipe with acid dripped through it from the top. It imitates a heap leach and shows whether the rock slumps and blocks the flow. Heap leach and vat leach Recovering metal by trickling acid through a large pile of crushed ore on a lined pad, or through ore held in a tank. Agitated tank leach Finely ground ore stirred with acid in a heated tank. It shows the most metal the acid can extract over a short time. Diamond drillhole A hole drilled with a diamond-tipped bit that cuts a solid cylinder of rock, so the sample keeps its original structure. Listing Rule 5.7 The ASX rule that sets out what a mining company must include when it reports exploration results for a material project. Earn-in An agreement where a partner gains a share of a project by spending money on it. Desktop financial study An office-based cost and revenue estimate built from test data rather than detailed engineering. The release says only that it will evaluate the commercial viability of atmospheric leaching at Murga. References and sources Each source carries an identifier, [R1] to [R9], and the same identifier appears in the text wherever that source is used. All company figures are quoted as published at the dates given. FIG. 01 and PLATE 01 are reproduced from Rimfire's public ASX releases. FIG. 02 is an original Samso timeline built only from dates and figures in [R1] to [R4]. TABLE 03 is a Samso table built from the published papers [R6] to [R9]. Those papers are about other deposits, not Murga. TABLE 01 and TABLE 02 are Samso tables built from the 28 September 2026 release. Where two company documents give different figures for the same thing, both are quoted and the document each came from is named. This article does not attempt to resolve them. [R1] Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM), "Rimfire accelerates Murga scandium pathway with expanded metallurgical study", ASX announcement, 28 September 2026. Source for the three workstreams, the laboratories, sample sizes, conditions and timetable, the iron comparison, Table 1 and Figure 1, and the Executive Chair's comments. announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260928/pdf/074lfz2tb01bgx.pdf [R2] Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM), "Murga Scandium MRE increases by 300%", ASX announcement, 13 April 2026. Source for the Inferred Mineral Resource of 56.1 million tonnes at 138 ppm scandium for 11,900 tonnes of scandium oxide at a 100 ppm cut-off, and for EL8935 and the Golden Plains Resources earn-in over the Fifield Project, including its development funding terms. announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260413/pdf/06ydvt2jy8w85w.pdf [R3] Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM), "Strong Encouragement from Initial Murga Scandium Metallurgical Study", ASX announcement, 23 June 2026, listed on the ASX platform as "Early Encouragement from Murga Scandium Metallurgy". Source for the 14-day bottle roll tests, the samples from FI2679, iron as an acid consumer, the 60 to 90 per cent projection, the start of the 160 to 180 day tests, the column test as first described, and Figure 2, the bottle roll photograph. announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260623/pdf/070x61qrd7tb4z.pdf [R4] Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM), "Clarification to ASX announcement released on 23 June 2026", ASX announcement, 13 August 2026. Source for the measured 14-day recoveries of 11.3 and 10.5 per cent, the basis of the 60 to 90 per cent projection, the 100 to 250 day heap leach period and the published 70 to 80 per cent extractions for other saprolite ores. announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260813/pdf/072qfvzhc27qdv.pdf [R5] Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM), "Rimfire secures 60% of Avondale Project", ASX announcement, 8 July 2026. Source for Golden Plains vesting a 40 per cent interest in Avondale and for the northwestern portion of the Murga deposit lying within the Avondale Project. announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260708/pdf/071hnmpc1rxh09.pdf [R6] McDonald, R.G. and Whittington, B.I. (2008), "Atmospheric acid leaching of nickel laterites review. Part I. Sulphuric acid technologies", Hydrometallurgy, volume 91, pages 35 to 55. doi.org/10.1016/j.hydromet.2007.11.009. Source for saprolite and clay ores leaching more readily than limonite, and for the listed problems of heap leaching laterite. [R7] Oxley, A., Sirvanci, N. and Purkiss, S. (2007), "Çaldağ nickel laterite atmospheric heap leach project", Metalurgija, Journal of Metallurgy, volume 13, issue 1. Cited by Rimfire in its 13 August 2026 release. Source for the 548-day heap, the nickel, cobalt and iron extractions and the acid use. [R8] Chassé, M., Griffin, W.L., O'Reilly, S.Y. and Calas, G. (2019), "Australian laterites reveal mechanisms governing scandium dynamics in the critical zone", Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, volume 260, pages 292 to 310. doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2019.06.036. Source for scandium being held in smectite clays and on iron oxyhydroxides in the saprolite. [R9] Fahrurrozi, M. and co-authors (2026), "Towards sustainable scandium extraction: atmospheric sulfuric acid leaching of Indonesian lateritic nickel ore", Transition Metal Chemistry, volume 51, article 12. doi.org/10.1007/s11243-025-00699-7. Source for the 92.94 per cent scandium recovery at 90°C. The cover photograph shows the bottle roll test equipment used for the Murga metallurgical study, from Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited, ASX announcement of 23 June 2026, Figure 2, page 5. Cropped by Samso. The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. 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Iron Bear Resources fell 46.7 per cent in one session when Vale declined to take up Phase 2 of the Development Agreement. This Chart Read stays on the share price chart. What the measures show, what each of them means in plain English, and whether the chart on its own supports any direction at all. Iron Bear Resources (ASX: IBR) fell 46.7 per cent in one session on 15 September 2026, after telling the market that Vale would not proceed to Phase 2 of the Development Agreement over its Iron Bear magnetite project in Canada. The geology and the study economics are in Samso's earlier work on the company. This piece stays on the chart. A reader glancing at the last five sessions would see a share that has stopped falling and started to climb. What follows tests whether the rest of the chart supports that, over the two years FIG. 01 sets out [R1]. The source documents are the company's ASX releases of 15 and 18 September 2026 and the Pre-Feasibility Study of 29 July 2026. Every measure below is Samso's own, computed from daily price and volume [R2]. The trend was already down before Vale said anything A technical trader starts with the 200-day simple moving average, the average closing price over the last 200 trading days. It is the line most of them use to separate an uptrend from a downtrend, and Paul Tudor Jones has said publicly that he treats it as his primary risk filter [R8]. IBR was on the wrong side of it before Vale said anything. The 200-day average is 5.5 cents and its twenty-session slope is minus 1.7 per cent, so the line itself is falling. The 50-day average fell through it on 21 September, closing at 5.40 cents against 5.46 (FIG. 02). Chart traders call that a death cross. It confirms what the price has already done rather than predicting anything, and a large number of screens are set to flag it [R6]. ADX, the Average Directional Index, was introduced by J. Welles Wilder in New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems in 1978. It reads how strong a trend is without saying which way it runs, and above 25 is conventionally treated as a real trend. IBR's 14-day ADX is 47.1, and it has been above 25 for twenty-three sessions running. The down indicator is at 45.5 against the up indicator at 16.8 (FIG. 03). Selling pressure has been above buying pressure without a break since 5 August 2026, six weeks before Vale said anything. The two crossed ten times during 2026, and the August crossing counts because it held. Over the twenty sessions to 21 September the ASX 200 fell 4.08 per cent and IBR fell 46.0 per cent [R7]. Median daily turnover over the twenty sessions before the announcement was about A$44,900. A chart built on A$45,000 a day records a handful of trades rather than a market judgement, and patterns drawn on turnover that thin are often noise. That caution applies to every measure in this piece. A 53 per cent gap, then a box the price has just traded out of The last close before trading stopped was 4.5 cents on 10 September. Nothing traded on 11 or 14 September while the company was in a halt. On 15 September the stock opened at 2.1 cents, a gap of 53.3 per cent. A gap is the space on a chart where no trading happened, because the first trade of the day was nowhere near the last trade of the day before. To a technical trader a gap that size on a small resources company is an announcement, and the chart has merely recorded it. The working rule is to check every gap over 8 per cent against the announcement record before calling a move technical. This one matches the release lodged that morning. 30,031,143 shares traded on 15 September. Median daily volume over the twenty trading days to 10 September was 879,900 shares, so that one session ran at 34.1 times normal (FIG. 04). The median is the middle value of those twenty days rather than the average, which stops a single heavy day dragging the figure up. Those four sessions, 15 to 18 September, traded inside a box. The low was 2.0 cents, set on 15 September, and the ceiling was 2.7 cents, touched on 15 September and again on 18 September. On Monday 21 September the stock opened at 2.5 cents, traded to 2.9 cents and closed at 2.7 cents, up 8.0 per cent on 4,126,149 shares. So the price has been through the ceiling of the box intraday and has come back to sit on it. Monday's range is worth putting in proportion. The 20-day Average True Range, also from Wilder's 1978 book, measures the average daily range and counts any gap from the previous close as part of it. It is 0.39 cents, or 14.5 per cent of a 2.7 cent share price in a day, against the 5 to 8 per cent Samso treats as ordinary for a small resources company. Monday moved 0.4 cents low to high, so it is one ordinary day on this chart [R10]. There is also no older structure beneath the price. Going back 120 sessions, no level below it is one the chart had turned at before the announcement, so the only references underneath are the ones these five sessions made themselves, the 2.1 cent closes of 16 and 17 September and the 2.0 cent low. Every level here is approximate. The 10-day average, the channel break and the 200-day filter The first is the 10-day exponential moving average, an average of the last ten closes that weights the recent ones more heavily, so it turns faster than a plain average. Marty Schwartz described it in Pit Bull as his favourite indicator for working out which side of a trade to be on. It is 3.25 cents and the price is 16.9 per cent below it, against 25.8 per cent below on Friday, so the gap is closing from both ends. On Samso's arithmetic, if the price holds at 2.7 cents, the average falls under 2.9 cents in six sessions and under 2.8 cents in nine. FIG. 05 shows it coming down into the range [R9]. The second is a channel break. The Turtle system made famous by Richard Dennis buys a close above the highest high of the last twenty sessions. That level is 5.2 cents, 93 per cent above the last close, and 7.8 cents on the fifty-five day setting. The third is the 200-day filter at 5.5 cents, which section 1.00 has already been through. A mechanical breakout system produces no signal anywhere near any of them [R11]. The loop that lifted the price has run in reverse George Soros's reflexivity, from The Alchemy of Finance in 1987, explains the shape of the last two years. A view moves the price, and the price then changes the facts themselves. A rising share price and a major partner made capital available, that capital paid for the drilling and the study, and the news that lifted the chart was partly produced by it [R12]. The loop had already stopped turning before Vale said anything, and the chart dates it. The Pre-Feasibility Study landed on 29 July 2026 carrying a post-tax net present value of US$9.0 billion, the amount a study says a project is worth today after tax. The stock closed 4.5 per cent higher and gave it back the next session. By 10 September it was 32.8 per cent below where it had been the day before the study was released [R3]. Vale's departure is the second event on this chart, not the first. The price had already given back everything the study delivered before the market knew Vale was leaving. The 2.0 cent low, the 2.7 cent ceiling and a capital raising The 2.0 cent low of 15 September is one of the two levels. A close below it would be the first under 2.0 cents in four hundred and sixty-seven sessions. The only two in the post-consolidation record are 13 and 14 November 2024, both at 1.64 cents [R4]. The 2.7 cent ceiling is the other. Monday closed on it rather than above it, on 4,126,149 shares against the 879,900 pre-announcement median. A close clearly above 2.7 cents, held for more than one session and on volume of that order, is the first evidence that the selling has finished rather than paused. A capital raising resets all of it. A placement is normally done at a discount and sets a new reference price, so any moving average drawn across that date is computed across a discontinuity and will mislead a reader who does not know it is there. Samso Concluding Comments A reader glancing at the last five sessions would see a share that has stopped falling and begun to climb. The rest of the chart does not support reading that as a turn yet. This is a strong downtrend, well below a falling 200-day average, with the death cross now on the chart, no structure beneath the current price and a mechanical breakout level 93 per cent away. Five sessions after a 53 per cent gap is too short a window to overturn that, and on A$45,000 a day of normal turnover it is too thin a window as well. The chart is probably not pricing the rock. It is very likely pricing the funding. What the chart can show is the date the market stopped paying for good news, and that date is 29 July. THE OTHER WAY TO READ THIS The same chart carries a constructive reading. A 53 per cent gap down on 34 times normal volume is a forced repricing, and forced repricings overshoot. The stock closed 14.3 per cent above its opening print on the news, and after two quiet sessions it has risen in each of the last two, taking out the top of the range intraday on 21 September. That is not the shape of a market trying to get out at any price. Turnover of 50.2 million shares over five sessions is 4.5 per cent of the register changing hands, so most holders who wanted to leave have left, and the buyers taking stock from them are doing it with the news in front of them. On that reading the box was a base rather than a pause. SAMSO TAKE The chart set itself a test and Monday was the first day of it. The price went through 2.7 cents intraday and closed on it, which is the level reached rather than the level held. What would settle it is a close clearly above 2.7 cents, on volume of Monday's order, that survives the following session. The 10-day average is the other half. It is 3.25 cents and falling, and on Samso's arithmetic it comes under 2.9 cents in six sessions if the price stays where it is. The two lines are converging, so a reader does not have to wait long. Both are drawn on FIG. 05, and the answer arrives without an announcement. Previous Samso Coverage of Iron Bear Resources Samso has followed this company since it traded as Cyclone Metals. The two entries in gold are Coffee with Samso interviews rather than written pieces. As Iron Bear Resources 30 JUL 2026 Iron Bear Resources (ASX:IBR) Maiden PFS: A 3.3 Billion Tonne Ore Reserve, a US$ 9 Billion NPV, and What It All Means The maiden Pre-Feasibility Study in full, including what Vale's 75 per cent earn-in left for shareholders. 01 JUL 2026 Iron Bear Resources (ASX: IBR): Why Vale Is Funding Its Way to 75% of Iron Bear How the two-phase Development Agreement worked, written on the fourth Vale funding tranche. 18 MAY 2026 Iron Bear Resources Limited (ASX: IBR), Indicated Resource Doubles to 4.5 Billion Tonnes at 29.5% Fe and 20.6% Magnetic Fe at the Iron Bear Project The resource upgrade and the pilot-plant work behind the direct reduction concentrate. COFFEE WITH SAMSO 11 APR 2026 Coffee with Samso - Iron Bear Resources Limited (ASX: IBR) - A Magnetite Story Positioned for Steel Decarbonisation Episode 223. The company on where its magnetite fits the shift to direct reduction steelmaking. As Cyclone Metals 05 JAN 2026 Cyclone Metals Limited - Creating Additional Value with Gold Targets in Central Otago, New Zealand. The New Zealand gold targets, the part of the portfolio outside Iron Bear. 13 AUG 2025 Cyclone Metals Limited (ASX: CLE) - Iron Bear Project Scoping Study Positions Company for Large-Scale, Low-Carbon Magnetite Production The scoping study, the study that came before the PFS this piece measures the price against. 31 JUL 2025 Cyclone Metals (ASX: CLE) Powers Ahead - Iron Bear Gathers Pace with Renewables, Vale Support, and Premium Iron Outputs The hydropower costings and the metallurgical work, published the week the share price set its three-year high. COFFEE WITH SAMSO 24 MAR 2025 Coffee with Samso - Cyclone Metals Limited (ASX:CLE) - A Green Iron Ore Business - Magnetite is the New Sheriff in Town. Paul Berend, Executive Director and CEO, five weeks after the Vale Development Agreement was signed. VOCABULARY 200-day moving average. The average closing price over the last 200 trading days. The line most professional traders use to separate an uptrend from a downtrend. 10-day exponential moving average. An average of the last ten closes that weights the recent ones more heavily, so it turns faster than a plain average. Used for short-horizon direction. Death cross. When the 50-day average falls below the 200-day. A lagging signal that confirms what the price has already done, and one that a lot of screens are set to flag. ADX and the directional pair. The Average Directional Index, from J. Welles Wilder's New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems, 1978. It reads how strong a trend is without saying which way it runs. Above 25 is conventionally treated as a real trend. The two directional indicators underneath it, +DI and -DI, say whether buyers or sellers are in control. Gap. A space on a chart where no trading happened, because the first trade of a day was nowhere near the last trade of the day before. On a small resources company a large gap is almost always an announcement. Median. The middle value of a set of numbers rather than the average. Used here for volume, because one enormous session would drag an average up and make every other day look quiet. Average True Range. The average daily trading range over twenty days, counting any gap from the previous close as part of the range. A way of stating how much a share moves in a normal day. For a small resources company 5 to 8 per cent of the price is normal. Channel breakout. A close above the highest high of a set number of past sessions. The bands are called Donchian channels, after Richard Donchian, and the twenty and fifty-five day settings are the ones Richard Dennis made famous with the Turtle traders. It is the signal a mechanical breakout trader waits for. Reflexivity. George Soros's idea that prices are not a passive reflection of the facts. A view moves the price, and the price then changes the facts, for example by making capital easier to raise. Share consolidation. Combining a number of shares into one, twenty into one in this company's case. It does not change what the company is worth, so chart prices before the date are multiplied to keep the line continuous. References and sources Market-sensitive figures are stated as at their dates and were refreshed on the build date of 21 September 2026, after the close. All five figures in this piece are original Samso illustrations of sourced data, built from daily price and volume for IBR.AX. Every indicator was computed by Samso rather than taken from a vendor, and the code that produces them is held with the build. Share counts and study figures come from the company's filings as listed. This piece reads the price chart only. It does not assess the project, the geology or the company's accounts, and the earlier Samso coverage listed above is where that work is. [R1] Iron Bear Resources Limited, Completion of Phase 1 Development Agreement, Iron Bear to retain 100% Project Ownership, ASX announcement, 15 September 2026. Source for the Vale decision and for the footnote deferring the Phase 1 drilling campaign until additional funding is secured. [R2] Iron Bear Resources Limited, Receipt of final notice relating to the development agreement, ASX announcement, 18 September 2026. [R3] Iron Bear Resources Limited, "Iron Bear Project PFS delivers outstanding results", ASX announcement, 29 July 2026. The dated event the chart is measured against, and the source for the post-tax unleveraged net present value of US$9.0 billion at an 8% discount rate, which is the one study figure this piece quotes. [R4] Cyclone Metals Limited, Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2025. Source for the twenty into one share consolidation completed 7 November 2024, with post-consolidation trading from 13 November 2024. [R5] ASX company data for IBR, shares on issue of 1,106,253,248, read 19 September 2026. Used to express five sessions of turnover as a percentage of the register, which is Samso's arithmetic on that share count. [R6] Daily open, high, low, close and volume for IBR.AX to the close of 21 September 2026, adjusted for the twenty into one consolidation so the line is continuous across it, used for every chart and every indicator in this piece. [R7] Daily closes for the S&P/ASX 200 (^AXJO) to 21 September 2026, used only for the twenty-session comparison against IBR. [R8] Jack Schwager, Market Wizards, 1989, for the Paul Tudor Jones and Marty Schwartz positions cited. [R9] Marty Schwartz, Pit Bull, 1999, for the 10-day exponential moving average. [R10] J. Welles Wilder, New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems, 1978, for the Average Directional Index and the Average True Range. [R11] Curtis Faith, Way of the Turtle, 2007, for the Richard Dennis channel breakout system built on Donchian channels. [R12] George Soros, The Alchemy of Finance, 1987, for reflexivity. The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple. Cut through the noise and spotlight what matters. Genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Investors can explore our four core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News Samso Research There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. 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Every one of them is about how to think about investing rather than what to buy. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies Samso News is independent research commentary for general information only. Nothing in this article is financial product advice, and it does not take into account any reader's objectives, financial situation or needs. Figures are drawn from public sources believed reliable at the stated dates but are not guaranteed. Market-sensitive numbers change daily. Samso or associated parties may hold positions in, or have commercial arrangements with, companies mentioned. Seek professional advice before making investment decisions. © Samso 2026 · samso.com.au

Samso Weekly Market Wrap | Week ending Friday, September 25, 2026 Australian shares finished the week lower after three modest daily gains gave way to selling on Thursday and Friday, as rising global bond yields, renewed oil-supply concerns and expectations of further interest-rate increases weighed on sentiment. The S&P/ASX 200 closed Friday at 8,654.60, down 47.40 points, or 0.54%. Across the week, the benchmark lost 76.60 points, or 0.88%, from the previous Friday’s close of 8,731.20. Smaller companies suffered a sharper reversal. The Small Ordinaries closed at 3,355.50, down 1.36% on Friday and 1.67% for the week, giving back its midweek gains. ASX today: Weekly Key Highlights ASX 200 loses 0.88% for the week, with Thursday and Friday erasing the earlier advance. Small Ordinaries decline 1.67%, reversing the previous week’s outperformance. US Treasury yields reach their highest levels since 2007, increasing pressure on equity valuations. Australian unemployment reaches 4.6%, while employment and participation also rise. Oil returns above US$100, supporting energy producers but complicating the inflation outlook. Attention turns to the RBA’s September 29 decision. Three positive sessions fail to establish momentum The week began quietly. On Monday, the ASX 200 added just 0.70 points to 8,731.90, with banks and healthcare companies helping offset technology weakness. Tuesday delivered the strongest advance. The benchmark gained 25.90 points, or 0.30%, to 8,757.80, following renewed enthusiasm for artificial-intelligence-related stocks on Wall Street. Australian information technology rose 2.67%. WiseTech Global gained 2.86%, TechnologyOne added 2.67% and Xero advanced 1.61%. Materials also strengthened, while energy and utilities lagged. Wednesday brought another gain, but participation narrowed. The ASX 200 rose 7.50 points to 8,765.30, with only three of the 11 major sectors finishing higher. Materials gained 1.57%, supported by BHP, Rio Tinto and gold producers. Utilities fell 2.21%, highlighting the uneven performance beneath the modest index advance. Bond yields change the market backdrop The week’s decisive external development was the sell-off in government bonds. The US 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 5% and reached approximately 5.22%, its highest level since 2007. The 30-year yield touched its highest level since 2004 as investors reassessed inflation risks and the prospect of further Federal Reserve tightening. Higher yields make government debt more competitive with equities and reduce the present value of future corporate earnings. They also increase financing costs, particularly for indebted businesses and companies that need additional capital. That pressure coincided with another rise in oil prices. Brent settled Thursday at US$106.60 a barrel after Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia revived supply concerns, despite continuing diplomatic discussions involving the United States and Iran. Brent eased towards US$105.70–US$105.90 during Friday morning trading but remained elevated. Small caps reverse their midweek advance The Small Ordinaries entered the week at 3,412.50 and reached 3,422.90 on Wednesday. It then fell to 3,401.70 on Thursday, before losing another 46.20 points to 3,355.50 on Friday. Its weekly decline of 1.67% was almost twice the ASX 200’s percentage loss. The closing figures strengthen the picture seen during Friday afternoon: selling was heavier among smaller companies, despite isolated stocks recording substantial gains. That underperformance is consistent with greater caution towards risk, although index movements alone cannot establish why investors sold individual companies. Unemployment rises without changing rate expectations Australia’s unemployment rate reached 4.6% in August, while employment increased by 39,500. The employment gain comprised a 45,800 increase in part-time positions and a 6,300 decline in full-time employment. Participation rose to 67.1%, while underemployment eased to 6.2%. The result was mixed: more people found work, but the labour force expanded faster than employment. Hours worked also increased. The figures did little to reduce expectations of another RBA increase. On Thursday afternoon, LSEG pricing cited by ABC implied a 96.5% probability of a rise at the next meeting. The ASX 200 recovered from its Thursday morning lows but still finished down 63.30 points, or 0.72%, at 8,702.00. Technology and resources lose consistency Tuesday’s technology rally proved difficult to sustain. By Friday afternoon, Xero was down more than 3% and HUB24 approximately 5%, as growth and financial-platform stocks came under renewed pressure. Resources also showed substantial variation. Materials led Wednesday’s advance, but lithium, rare-earth and several gold companies weakened later in the week. Selected gold producers attracted buying on Friday, including Genesis Minerals, Vault Minerals and Westgold Resources. That support did not extend across the resources sector. Energy followed a different pattern. Falling oil prices weighed early in the week, while the subsequent rebound supported producers and refiners. Higher crude nevertheless carried adverse implications for transport costs, household spending and inflation. Business activity slows as the dollar weakens Australia’s September flash purchasing managers’ surveys provided further evidence of slowing activity. The composite PMI fell to 50.8 from 52.7, remaining above the 50 threshold separating expansion from contraction. Manufacturing slipped to 49.3 from 52.0, while services eased to 51.4 from 53.2. Manufacturing output fell to 46.4, and private-sector employment declined for the first time since May. The Australian dollar also weakened, moving from approximately US71.18 cents on Monday to US70.08 cents during Friday trading. A lower currency can benefit exporters and businesses earning overseas revenue, but it also increases the Australian-dollar cost of imports, including fuel. What matters next week The RBA’s September 29 decision is the principal domestic event. The cash rate stands at 4.35%; a 25-basis-point increase would take it to 4.60%. Investors will assess both the decision and the accompanying explanation, particularly the balance between persistent inflation, higher unemployment and slowing business activity. Global bond yields and Middle East developments remain important external influences. Sustained oil-price strength could support energy earnings while making the broader inflation problem more difficult. Samso Concluding Comments This week showed how quickly market leadership can change. Technology led Tuesday’s advance, materials supported Wednesday, and energy provided some protection as the broader market weakened. Small caps offered the clearest evidence of that change in sentiment, ending the week with larger losses than the benchmark. For investors, the distinction remains between a falling share price and a deteriorating business. Cash reserves, funding requirements, operating costs and the timing of future earnings become particularly important when borrowing costs rise. Next week’s RBA decision will help define the conditions in which those businesses must operate. Samso Afternoon Market Update | Friday, September 25, 2026 | 2.00pm AEST Australian small caps were under heavier selling pressure than the broader market on Friday afternoon, as elevated global bond yields and oil above US$100 a barrel maintained concerns about inflation and borrowing costs. The S&P/ASX 200 was down 42.20 points, or 0.48%, at 8,659.80, having recovered from a session low of 8,639.90. The Small Ordinaries fell 46 points, or 1.35%, to 3,355.70—almost three times the percentage decline in the benchmark. The index had touched 3,350.50 after starting the session at 3,401.70. ASX today: Key Highlights Small Ordinaries decline 1.35%, significantly underperforming the ASX 200. Consumer staples provide support, while most other sectors remain under pressure. Netwealth, Elders and EQ Resources retreat sharply. Selected gold producers advance, despite weakness elsewhere in resources. Bitcoin trades near US$84,350, while investors await tonight’s US economic releases. Small caps bear the heavier losses Friday’s decline reversed the relative resilience smaller companies displayed during Thursday’s sell-off. Several smaller stocks recorded losses of between 16% and 33%. There were isolated gains, including NX1, up 66.67%, and M24, up 33.33%, but these did not prevent a substantial decline in the Small Ordinaries. Selling also extended into mid-caps. Netwealth Group fell 8.04%, Elders declined 7.27% and EQ Resources lost 7%. The index comparison shows clear small-cap underperformance, although it does not establish a common cause for every individual share-price move. Consumer staples and selected gold stocks hold up Consumer staples were the clearest area of sector strength. Information technology, communication services, utilities, real estate, industrials and consumer discretionary shares remained under pressure. Among larger companies, HUB24 declined 5.04%, Mineral Resources fell 3.71%, CAR Group lost 3.33% and Xero retreated 3.30%. Selected gold producers moved against the broader trend. Genesis Minerals, Vault Minerals and Westgold Resources were higher, providing some resilience within an otherwise uneven resources market. Asian markets prove more resilient Japan’s Nikkei 225 was approximately 1.3% higher in the supplied afternoon snapshot, while MSCI’s broad Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan was roughly flat. Regional activity was reduced by holiday closures in mainland China, Taiwan and South Korea. The Asian equities were holding up despite continued pressure in global bond markets. The US 10-year Treasury yield had reached approximately 5.22%, its highest level since 2007, while the 30-year yield touched its highest level since 2004. Wall Street finished Thursday almost unchanged overall: the S&P 500 slipped 0.02%, the Nasdaq gained 0.01% and the Dow Jones declined 0.3%. Bitcoin holds near US$84,000 Bitcoin traded around US$84,350, virtually unchanged after recent volatility. Its limited movement contrasted with the sharper losses in Australian small caps. Elevated bond yields and a firm US dollar remained part of the broader backdrop for risk assets, but the cryptocurrency’s price alone offered no clear signal about the direction of the afternoon equity session. London faces a cautious opening The FTSE 100 closed Thursday down 0.24% at 10,679.99. Smaller UK companies recorded larger losses, with the FTSE 250 falling approximately 0.9% and the AIM All-Share declining 1.1%. Early December FTSE 100 futures were around 10,757.6, down approximately 0.07%. That futures level relates to the December contract and is separate from the cash index. UK consumer confidence offered a modestly positive economic signal. GfK’s September reading improved to −13 from −14, beating economists’ expectations of −16 and reaching its highest level since August 2024. Confidence nevertheless remained negative. What to watch tonight Two scheduled US releases will provide further evidence on economic activity and household sentiment: August durable-goods orders: 1.30pm BST, or 10.30pm AEST on Friday. Final September University of Michigan consumer sentiment: 3pm BST, or midnight AEST entering Saturday. Investors will watch both the headline results and inflation expectations, with the Treasury market’s response likely to influence the next direction for equities. Samso Concluding Comments The most significant feature of Friday’s session is the widening performance gap between small companies and the large-cap benchmark. Consumer staples and selected gold producers attracted support, but that buying did not extend across the market. The pattern is consistent with greater caution, although company announcements, liquidity and trading volumes remain important when assessing individual moves. Into the close, the immediate question is whether small caps can recover from their lows or finish the week carrying the larger share of the market’s losses. Samso Pre-market update Friday, September 25, 2026 | 9: 00 am AEST Australian shares are poised to open lower on Friday after renewed Middle East attacks drove oil prices higher, intensifying inflation concerns and adding pressure to global bond markets. SPI indicators pointed to a decline of approximately 32 points, or 0.4%, following Thursday’s 0.72% fall in the S&P/ASX 200. Early futures trading also indicated a weaker opening, according to Stockhead’s morning report. Energy producers face a stronger commodity backdrop after Brent crude settled above US$106 a barrel. For the broader market, however, rising fuel costs and bond yields present renewed challenges. ASX today: Key Highlights ASX Today: ASX futures indicate a decline of approximately 0.4%. Brent crude settles at US$106.60, up 3.4% after fresh attacks on Saudi Arabia. US 10-year Treasury yields rise towards 5.21%, maintaining pressure on equity valuations. Small Ordinaries closes Thursday at 3,401.70, down 0.62%. US durable-goods orders and consumer sentiment are due tonight, ahead of next week’s RBA decision. Materials and property weigh on the Australian market The S&P/ASX 200 lost 63.30 points to 8,702.00 on Thursday. The All Ordinaries declined 59.20 points, or 0.66%, to 8,897.00. Energy gained more than 1%, while materials and real estate were among the largest drags. BHP faced weaker copper prices and the suspension of operations at its Escondida mine in Chile following a fatal accident. The Small Ordinaries fell 21.20 points, or 0.62%, to 3,401.70, recovering from an intraday low of 3,371.40. It modestly outperformed the larger benchmarks but still participated in the broader decline. Employment grows, but unemployment reaches 4.6% Thursday’s labour force report showed Australian employment increasing by 39,500 in August, while unemployment reached 4.6%. Part-time employment increased by 45,800, while full-time employment declined by 6,300. Participation rose from 66.9% to 67.1%, and the number of unemployed people increased by 28,200. Hours worked also rose. The combination points to a mixed labour market: employment expanded, but the workforce grew faster than the number of jobs. The report did not materially reduce expectations of further monetary tightening. LSEG pricing cited by ABC on Thursday afternoon implied a 96.5% probability of a rate increase next week. The RBA cash rate remains 4.35%, with its next decision scheduled for September 29. A 25-basis-point increase would take the rate to 4.60%. Wall Street finishes little changed US equities ended a volatile Thursday session with limited movement in the major benchmarks. The S&P 500 slipped 1.90 points to 7,704.13. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 161.61 points, or 0.3%, to 51,349.98, while the Nasdaq Composite edged 3.34 points higher to 26,939.37. The US 10-year Treasury yield rose approximately nine basis points to 5.21%, while the two-year yield climbed four basis points to 4.93%. The 30-year yield briefly reached its highest level in more than two decades. Renewed inflation concerns, Federal Reserve commentary and fewer applications for unemployment benefits reinforced expectations of further tightening. Nvidia slipped 0.4%. Stitch Fix fell 21.6% after cautious guidance overshadowed better-than-expected quarterly results. Houthi attacks revive oil-supply concerns Brent crude rose 3.4% to settle at US$106.60 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate gained 2.7% to US$94.61. Both contracts rose approximately 5% at their session highs before easing. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted six ballistic missiles launched by Yemen’s Houthi movement. The Saudi-led coalition said the missiles targeted Taif and the Yanbu area on the Red Sea. Reports of US–Iran discussions about reopening the Strait of Hormuz helped prices retreat from their peaks, but supply concerns remained prominent. For Australian investors, higher crude prices may support producers while increasing costs for airlines, transport operators and other fuel-intensive businesses. European markets decline; Asia finishes mixed European equities weakened as rising oil prices and government bond yields weighed on sentiment. The FTSEurofirst 300 fell approximately 0.5%, while Germany’s DAX declined around 0.6%. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.24% to 10,679.99. In Asia’s Thursday session, China’s Shanghai Composite fell 1.2%, while Japan’s Nikkei gained approximately 0.8%. Currencies, commodities and Bitcoin The Australian dollar eased approximately 0.3% to US70.16 cents. The euro slipped to US$1.1377, while the yen weakened to 158.88 per US dollar. Commodity movements were mixed: Copper futures: Up 0.6%, with Chilean supply concerns providing support. Aluminium: Down 0.2%. Gold futures: Down 0.5% to approximately US$4,298 an ounce. Iron ore: Down 0.1% to US$97.14 a tonne. Bitcoin traded near US$84,325, little changed after briefly falling below US$83,000. What to watch on the ASX today Oil prices and long-term bond yields remain the immediate overseas influences, while local investors continue positioning for Tuesday’s RBA decision. In the United States, August durable-goods orders are scheduled for Friday. The final September University of Michigan consumer-sentiment survey follows at 10am US Eastern time. Its preliminary sentiment reading was 47.8, down from 51.7 in August, making the final assessment of household confidence and inflation expectations particularly relevant. Samso Concluding Comments The overnight session highlights the competing effects of higher oil prices. Producers may benefit, but sustained increases in fuel costs complicate the inflation outlook and can keep pressure on interest rates. Thursday’s modest small-cap outperformance should also be kept in perspective: the Small Ordinaries declined alongside the broader market. For Friday, the useful test is whether support for energy can extend to other sectors. Without a retreat in bond yields, property, technology and companies dependent on external funding may continue to face difficult conditions.

Australian Rare Earths has announced a maiden Ore Reserve, a carbonatite discovery and a pilot plant producing an intermediate product, all since June. The share price is 2.2 per cent below where it closed the day the Ore Reserve was announced. This is a Samso Chart Read. It sets what the share price has done against what the company has announced, and says what the chart can and cannot tell an investor. It carries no view on whether to buy or sell and no price levels to trade against. Samso published an independent Research Workup on AR3 on 9 September 2026 with a Samso Call of WATCH. That work was not commissioned by the company, and AR3 is not a Samso client. Where the numbers come from Price and volume figures are daily AR3.AX data to 18 September 2026. The last price, shares on issue, market capitalisation and the 52-week range were checked against the ASX company page for AR3 on 18 September 2026, which also supplies the announcement dates and the price-sensitive flags. Nothing here is a company forecast. A note on the vocabulary. Moving average, ADX, ATR, turnover, price sensitive, Ore Reserve, carbonatite and mixed rare earth hydroxide are all explained in plain English where they first appear, and collected again in the vocabulary box at the back of this piece. Where the Price Sits Australian Rare Earths closed at 11.25 cents on 18 September 2026. The ASX puts the market capitalisation at A$28.25 million on 256,879,776 shares, struck on the previous close of 11.0 cents. At the 11.25 cent close the same share count gives about A$28.9 million, which is Samso's arithmetic rather than a published figure. Over the last twelve months the shares have traded between 8.7 cents and 41 cents (FIGURE 01). The high was set on 14 October 2025. The low was set on 29 July 2026, after the Ore Reserve rather than before it. The share price sits below its 200-day moving average. That line is the average closing price over the last 200 trading days, and most professional traders use it to separate a long-term uptrend from a long-term downtrend. AR3 is 20.0 per cent below it, and the line itself has fallen 7.2 per cent over the last twenty sessions. The long-term average is still drifting down. The shorter picture is steadier. The price is 4.9 per cent above its 50-day average and 1.2 per cent below its 10-day exponential average. There is a measure called ADX, put forward by Welles Wilder in New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems in 1978, which tries to answer one narrow question. Is the market trending, or is it just moving about. It reads 17.4 here over the short run, and anything under 20 is usually taken to mean no real trend is present in either direction. So the description that fits is a stock that fell, stopped falling, and is now going sideways. What the Market Did With the News The dates are where this gets useful. FIGURE 02 marks the eight operational releases from 25 June onward. It leaves out the routine filings, the quotation applications and director notices every listed company lodges. The heavy ones are the Pre-Feasibility Study and maiden Ore Reserve on 25 June, the carbonatite system identified at Overland on 8 July, the pilot plant moving to mixed rare earth hydroxide production on 10 September, and the expanded Overland discovery on 15 September. That is a substantial three months. Now set the path against it (FIGURE 02). The stock closed at 11.5 cents on the day the Ore Reserve was announced. It then fell 24.3 per cent to 8.7 cents by 29 July. It recovered to 13 cents on 25 August. It closed on 18 September at 11.25 cents, which is 2.2 per cent below where it started. The round trip matters more than the net figure. Over 60 trading sessions the stock is up 7.1 per cent and over 20 sessions up 4.7 per cent. Both are true and both hide the path. Over six months the shares are down 19.6 per cent. Against the S&P/ASX 200 the stock is ahead by 8.3 percentage points over 20 sessions and 7.5 points over 60, and behind by about 23 points over six months. Those comparisons are Samso's arithmetic from the two price series. The One Session That Moved It On 25 August the shares rose 23.8 per cent in a single session, from 10.5 cents to 13 cents, on 2,764,175 shares. That is 13.5 times the twenty-day median volume as it stood the day before, and the largest one-day move in the period. AR3 lodged one announcement that morning, at 9.54am. It was a 21-page presentation to the Tribeca Future Facing Commodities Investment Symposium. The company did not flag it price sensitive. The A$2.1 million grant instalment came three days later. The move did not hold. The stock closed at 12.5 cents the next day and 11.5 cents the day after. Every announcement that followed, including the drilling start, the pilot plant milestone and the expanded discovery, has been absorbed inside an 11 to 13 cent range without a comparable session. A conference presentation is not new information in the way a drilling result is. It restates what the company has already told the market, to a room of resources investors who may not have been watching. Samso cannot tell from the chart whether it caused the move and will not claim that it did. What can be said is that the market repriced this stock once in three months, by about a quarter, and took most of it back. The one session it did that on was the day the company presented. Why This Chart Should Be Read Carefully Median daily turnover over the last twenty sessions is about A$26,000, on a median of 238,403 shares. The dollar figure is Samso's arithmetic from those two series. It qualifies everything above it, and it is the number to carry out of this piece. At that level the price is set by a handful of participants. A single seller of any size moves it, and a single buyer produces a session like 25 August. A chart pattern drawn on turnover this thin describes the behaviour of those few participants. It is not a considered market judgement on the Ore Reserve or the carbonatite, and it should not be read as one. The volatility fits. The average daily range, measured by a tool called ATR, which Wilder introduced in the same 1978 book, runs at about 5.4 per cent of the share price, which for an explorer is normal. A 5 per cent move on any given day carries no information. The other way to read this The reading above treats the flat range as a market waiting. It can be read the other way. A stock that delivers a maiden Ore Reserve, a discovery and a processing milestone in twelve weeks and finishes lower than it started may be telling you the market has already priced those outcomes, or has decided they do not change what it is willing to pay. Neither reading can be settled from the chart. Turnover of A$26,000 a day is too thin to carry either conclusion, and that cuts against the optimistic case exactly as much as the pessimistic one. What a Technical Trader Would See There is a third way to read this chart, and it is the one a technical equity trader would use. It asks a different question from the geology and from the announcements. The question is not what the company has found. It is what the price itself has been doing. The first thing such a trader notices is that the trading range has tightened. There is a measure for this called Bollinger band width, after John Bollinger, who developed the bands in the early 1980s and set them out in Bollinger on Bollinger Bands in 2001. It is how far the price has spread around its own twenty-day average, stated as a percentage of that average. AR3 reads 18.2 per cent. The median over the last two years is 28.7 per cent, and only 15 per cent of the last two years has been tighter than today. In trading language the chart is coiled (FIGURE 03). A coil is one of the few setups most chart traders agree on. A range this narrow rarely stays narrow. What it does not tell anyone is which direction the price goes when the range breaks. This company's own chart makes that point twice. The bands pinched tighter than they are today through April and May, and that range resolved downward, 23 per cent lower over the twenty sessions that followed. They pinched again from the end of June through July, and that one resolved upward, 13 per cent higher over the twenty sessions that followed. The same setup, opposite outcomes, five months apart. Both stretches are shaded in FIGURE 03 so a reader can check it rather than take it on trust. Two further measures point in opposite directions, and FIGURE 04 carries both. The 50-day average has turned. In late June it was falling at 9.7 per cent over twenty sessions. By 21 August that had eased to 5.6 per cent, and on 2 September it crossed into positive territory. It is now rising at 3.4 per cent. A trader reads a falling average that flattens and then turns as the first mechanical sign of a floor being built. The volume does not agree. Over the last forty sessions the median volume on days the stock closed higher is 171,552 shares. On days it closed lower it is 238,528. Sellers have been the more committed side by about 40 per cent. In trading language that is distribution rather than accumulation, which is a way of saying the selling has not finished. So the technical reading lands where the rest of this piece does. The structure of the chart suggests a floor is forming. The participation suggests the selling is not finished. A technical trader looking at this would not call the direction, and would say so. What Would Change This Reading Since 25 August the stock has traded between 11 and 13 cents, and the last three sessions closed at the bottom of that band. So the reading of this chart is that nothing has broken in either direction. What would show the reading to be wrong is a sustained close outside 11 to 13 cents on volume above the twenty-day median. That is a test of the reading, not a level to trade against. Until it happens the chart is not saying anything, and a reader waiting for it to speak is waiting on the wrong thing. Samso Concluding Comments This is a company delivering operationally into a share price that fell first and has since gone quiet. The chart is not signalling anything. There is no trend, no breakout, and a range that has held for months on turnover thin enough that the range itself should be treated carefully. What the chart is showing is a market waiting. Four substantial releases went in over twelve weeks and the price came out the other side within a few per cent of where it started. That is the market saying it has not decided what those releases are worth yet. It is a reading about the market, not a verdict on the company. The Samso Take For an ASX investor the question this chart raises is not where the price is going. It is which of the two things the chart itself is saying turns out to be the right one. The structure says a floor is forming. The participation says the selling has not finished. Both are measured off the same twelve months of trading, and they disagree. Which of the two does a reader trust, and what would they need to see on the chart before they changed their mind? Vocabulary Moving average. The average closing price over a set number of trading days. A 200-day average smooths two-thirds of a year of trading into one line, and traders use it as a rough divider between a long uptrend and a long downtrend. An exponential average is the same idea with the most recent days weighted more heavily, so it turns sooner. ADX. Average Directional Index. A measure of whether a market is trending at all, in either direction. Under 20 is usually read as no trend present, whatever the price line looks like to the eye. ATR. Average True Range. The typical distance a share price travels in a day, expressed here as a percentage of the price. It measures how much the stock moves, not which way. Turnover. The dollar value of shares traded, as opposed to the number of shares. Low turnover means few participants are setting the price, so the chart reflects their behaviour rather than a broad market view. Price sensitive. A flag the ASX applies to an announcement a company considers likely to affect its share price. It is the company's own classification, applied at lodgement. Ore Reserve. The part of a mineral deposit that a company has shown, through a study, can be mined and processed economically under stated assumptions. It is a higher bar than a Mineral Resource and it is reported under the JORC Code. Carbonatite. An unusual igneous rock made mostly of carbonate minerals rather than silicates. Carbonatites host many of the world's niobium and rare earth deposits, which is why finding one is significant to an explorer. Mixed rare earth hydroxide. An intermediate product. Rare earth elements recovered from ore and concentrated into a single hydroxide compound, ready for separation into individual elements elsewhere. Producing it is a step past a laboratory result and short of a saleable separated product. Previous Samso Coverage of Australian Rare Earths 09 SEPTEMBER 2026 Australian Rare Earths Limited (ASX: AR3) The Samso Research Workup. The full thesis on both assets, Koppamurra and Overland, with the Samso Call of WATCH. Independent work, not commissioned by the company. The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple. Cut through the noise and spotlight what matters. Genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Investors can explore our four core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News Samso Research There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember, digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. 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