Overnight the S&P 500 rose 1.67% and the Nasdaq increased by 2.5% as tariff talk eases. The Wall Street Journal reported it was likely China tariffs would be approximately 50 – 65%.
Good news for Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) shareholders as Musk says he intends to scale back his time at the White House and refocus on the company. Tesla shares increased over 8%.
- S&P 500 = +1.67%
- Nasdaq = +2.5%
- Aussie dollar steady at 62.64 US cents
- Iron ore cracks $100 US a tonne
The ASX SPI is pointing to a relatively calm finish to the short week as half the country finishes up the Easter/ANZAC Day double up break.
Another sudden MinRes resignation
As discussed here just a few short days ago, embattled iron ore and lithium miner, Mineral Resources Limited (ASX:MIN) saw the sudden departure of two of its directors. Three short business days later, another director, Denise McComish, has resigned effectively immediately.
I quite enjoyed this post on X.
Not to be outdone by the road trains, another $MIN director rolls over
— illiquidity providooooor (@skyquake_1) April 23, 2025
McComish along with her former colleagues Susie Corlett and Jacqui McGill were also the three independent directors that made up the recently formed Ethics and Governance Committee. Announced to the market on the 4th of November 2024 the committees scope included:
- Reviewing related party transactions involving Mr Ellison
- Enhancing internal controls regarding related party transactions across the organisation, including approval processes
- Reviewing delegated authorities, executive reporting lines and compliance functions, and updating as appropriate
- Overseeing internal and external investigations, including whistleblower reports and ethical breaches
- Overseeing investigations into outstanding matters and reopening previously concluded investigations if further information comes to light
- Strengthening conflicts of interest procedures.
Perhaps the three of them were incredibly efficient and just knocked it out of the park in a few months and the committees job is done? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
A reminder on the efficiencies of ETFs
I first wrote about MIN in my October newsletter to Rask Invest investors. At that point, it had already halved from it’s peak of close to $80 a share and was the 50th largest holding in the Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF (ASX:VAS) at a weight of 0.35%. Today, MIN is the 88th largest holding at a weighing in at 0.17% of the ETF.
You will often hear fund managers say they let their winners run and cut the losers. In a market cap weighted ETF such as VAS, your problem investments become smaller as the share prices slide and market cap shrinks. Growing companies become a larger portion of the index as capita flows to the dominant forces of the times.
Passive, broad-based index tracking ETFs are the slow moving thematic ETFs that reflect our times.
By investing in VAS for Rask Invest account holders, we are removing specific company risk and sector specific risk in return for accepting the long-term market average. That is a passive investment approach.
As soon as you make a decision to increase or decrease the weight of one company away from that index you have made an active decision. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, you have said this company deserves to be a larger or smaller part of my portfolio.
Can MIN turn it around from here? Quite possibly, but we’re not betting our investors money on it and will happily take its 0.17% position in VAS.
A few clangers of my own
Not wanting to appear holier than thou in joining the MinRes pile on, here’s a podcast episode released this week I did with Owen. It started out as a bit of a laugh but finished up quite bruising! And thanks to Mon and Adrian our producers for choosing that image of me…good lord.
Finally, as always, if you want to get in touch with me you can via the chat function in the bottom right corner, the Rask Community or by jumping across to Rask Invest.
