rob zdravevski's blog

Lithium stocks are blowing off recent steam

Lithium is retracing a recent pop. There are correlations abound and no is talking about this commodity.

September 18, 2026

#liontown #sqm #albermarle #pls

Maybe short Materials / Long Bonds?

I’m tinkering about being long stocks in the Materials sector…you know, building materials, steel, chemicals, aggregates etc;

but I think the Materials Index peaks first, and then 2-4 months later, bond yields peak.

So, I may wait 4 months to buy “Materials” and perhaps around the same time, advise to also increase fixed income exposure.

Just some thinking at this stage.

September 18, 2026

Reading The Tape – JD.Com (9616 HK)

A major component of my work is that I provide evidence based empirical price analysis and probability reasoning to investors to assist validating the decision of “why today was the day that you bought, added, lightened or exited a security”.

You can like a stock (or any other asset) because of its theme or story, but prices matter and they tell you everything.

Today, I’m highlighting Hong Kong listed stock JD.Com (9616:HK).

My read of the tape says this stock falls from its current price of HK$105 to HK$91.

September 16, 2026

rob@karriasset.com.au

Macro Extremes (week ending September 11, 2026)

A weekly Macro, Cross Asset review of prices trading at extremes which may generate future investment ideas and opportunities.

The following assets (on a weekly timeframe) either registered an Overbought or Oversold reading and/or have traded more than 2.5 standard deviations above or below its rolling mean.

n.b. pricing of (commodity) futures contracts is only considering the immediate front month. 

* denotes multiple week inclusion

Extremes above the Mean (at least 2.5 standard deviations) 

Austrian, Belgian, Spanish, Greek, Irish, Kiwi and Portuguese 10-year government bond yields

British yield curve except the 30’s

U.S. high yield and BB Index

Richards Bay Coal

Rotterdam Coal

WTI Crude

North American Hot Rolled Coiled Steel *

Overbought (RSI > 70)  

Japanese 2, 5 and 10-year bond yield *

U.S. 5-year bond yield minus 5-year inflation breakeven rate spread *

U.S. 10-year bond yield minus 10-year inflation breakeven rate spread *

JKM LNG in $ *

Rice *

Heating Oil crack spread *

AUD/CHF *

CNH/USD *

COP/USD

Austria’s ATX Index *

Hungary’s BUX Index

Norway’s OBX *

And Poland’s WIG Index *

The Overbought Quinella (Both Overbought and Traded at > 2.5 standard deviations above the weekly mean) 

Belgian, Canadian, Danish, Finnish, French, Italian and Dutch 10-year government bond yields

The Australian, EU, U.S. yield curve (except for the 30’s)

U.S. 5–7-year corporate bond yields

TBX

Heating Oil *

JKM LNG in Yen *

Gasoline *

Sugar *

Dutch TTF Gas

Gasoil *

Gasoil crack spread *

Extremes below the Mean (at least 2.5 standard deviations) 

SHY

AUD/JPY

CAD/JPY *

CHF/AUD *

EUR/JPY *

GBP/JPY

USD/JPY

FCATC Index

Oversold (RSI < 30) 

USD/KRW *

The Oversold Quinella (Both Oversold and Traded at < 2.5 standard deviations below the weekly mean) 

CHF/JPY *

Notes & Ideas:

Government bond yields saw the most action and rose, again except for Brazilian 10’s.

Indian 10 year and U.S. 2- and 3-year bond yields have climb for 4 weeks.

Austrian, Belgian, Czech, Danish, Spanish, EU curve, Finnish, French, British curve, Greek, Irish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish 10-year yields have risen for 5 consecutive weeks.

As have the U.S. 5- and 7-year yields.

Australian 3-, 5- and 10-year yields, along with Japanese 2’s are in a 6-week winning streaks.

While the U.S. 30 minus 10-year yield spread has closed lower for the past 4 weeks.

Equities were mixed.

The Dow Jones Transports, S&P Small Cap 600 and TSX have declined for 4 weeks.

The CSI 300, CAC 40, China A50, FCATC, Nifty, Sensex and Nasdaq Transports are in 5-week losing streaks.

Brazil’s Bovespa has advanced for the past 4 weeks.

And Norway’s OBX is in a 9-week winning streak.

Commodities prices told a mixed story.

Coal, Oil, Distillates, Gases, Sugar and Rice were the notable gainers.

Cocoa, Cotton, Coffee, Lithium, Palladium, and Corn were amongst the largest decliners.

Many streaks came to an end while,

Rice and U.S. Guld Urea prices have climbed for 4 weeks.

JKM LNG, Gasoline, Dutch TTF and the Gasoil Oil crack spread are in 5-week winning streaks.

And Tin has fallen for 4 weeks.

Currencies were quieter.

The Aussie was mixed but mainly took a breather.

mainly higher.

AUD/EUR fell and broke a 5-week winning streak.

The Euro and Yen rose.

The latter features in this week’s list.

Kiwi was weaker.

The U.S. Dollar saw strength.

While the USD/KRW has fallen for 4 weeks.

And the PHP/USD has fallen for 5 weeks.

The larger advancers over the past week comprised of; 

Bloomberg Commodity Index 1.7%, Brent Crude 8.7%, WTI Crude 9.4%, Heating Oil 9.2%, JKM LNG 3.6%, Lumber 1.6%, Cattle 3.2%, JKM LNG in Yen 12.8%, Gasoline 2.9%, Robusta Coffee 2.8%, S&P GSCI 2.2%, Dutch TTF Gas 10.5%, Urea U.S. Gulf 1.8%, Gasoil 12.9%, Oats 2.8%, Gasoil crack 11.1%, Heating Oil crack 7.6%, BUX 3.2%, Kospi 3.3%, Helsinki 1.3% and BIST rose 3.3%.

The group of largest decliners for the week included; 

Australian Coking Coal (2.6%), Aluminium (1.9%), Baltic Dry Index (3.3%), Cocoa (3.7%), EHR (1.9%), Palm Oil (2.3%), Copper (2%), Arabica Coffee (3.4%), Lithium Carbonate (2.8%), Newcastle Coal (3.3%), Natural Gas (4.8%), Nickel (2.3%), Orange Juice (7%), Palladium (5.7%), Platinum (1.6%), Tin (2.7%), Silver (2.6%), Gold (1.8%), Gasoline crack (8%), Naphtha (7.1%), ZEX (1.3%), IDX (1.4%), DAX (1.8%), DJ Industrials (1.8%), FCATC (3.1%), HSCEI (3.6%), Hang Seng (3.3%), IBB (4.2%), S&P SmallCap 600 2.2%, KRE (1.8%), KSE (2.8%), FTSE 250 (2.5%), S&P MidCap 400 (1.9%), Mexico (1.5%), NBI (4.3%), Nikkei 225 (1.6%), Nifty (2.1%), Copenhagen (2.5%), Russell 2000 (2.4%), Sensex (2.3%), SMI (4.3%), IGPA (1.9%), STI (1.8%), Nasdaq Transports (1.8%), TSX (2.2%), FTSE 100 (1.7%), Vietnam (3.1%), XBI (4.7%), ASX Financials (2.3%), ASX 200 (2.9%), ASX Materials (3.9%) and ASX Small Caps fell 3%.

September 13, 2026

By Rob Zdravevski 

rob@karriasset.com.au

Still fancy commodities, but it’s in the timing

I like the ‘long’ commodity trade, particularly the ‘harder commodities’, but the beginning of the upward move began more than a year ago, and it wouldn’t have hurt to have gotten set earlier than that.

You’ll see an example of that in the chart of the Van Eck Australian Resource ETF pasted below.

At the beginning of the decade, I was a commodity bear and then in mid- 2023, I started writing about my ‘warming’ to commodities.

Commodity bullishness – illustrated

Now, I’m looking for a retracement.

Recently, cartwheels and backflips were being done when BHP’s share price was heralded as the largest capitalised company on the ASX.

Anyway, I think BHP’s stock price can decline at least 30% from its recent peak.

September 11, 2026

rob@karriasset.com.au

Gold price update – Sept 11, 2026

My June 19, 2026 Gold price call said the pullback was done.

An interim rally was indeed seen.

Gold price update

But my call of USD Gold visiting the US$3,100 region still stands.

September 11, 2026

rob@karriasset.com.au

The long and short of EU bond yields

EU 10 year bond yields are registering one of my overbought quinellas for the first time since September 2022.

They’ll appear in this weekend’s edition of my Macro Extremes.

For now, I’m recognising the upward momentum (which came into effect in late July ’26) as such but my call will be for this yield to pullback to 3% in the medium term, before seeing them settle into a new and higher atmosphere.

Overall, the EU 10 year bond yield is mimicking ‘shapes’ that I’m observing in the U.S. 10 year bond yield.

Incidentally, the U.S. 10 year bond yield is making shapes not seen since 1965.

September 11, 2026

rob@karriasset.com.au

European steel prices go from basement to penthouse

In the June 28, 2026 edition of Macro Extremes, North European Hot Rolled Coil Steel (EHR) appeared in the ‘oversold quinella’ category.

Macro Extremes (week ending June 26, 2026)

The front month of that commodity was trading around the EUR 540 mark.

This week, EHR is trading around EUR 740 and is now appears as entrant in the ‘overbought quinella’ section in the latest weekly edition of Macro Extremes.

That’ll do !

September 10, 2026

rob@karriasset.com.au

Prices tell us the temperature

ASX listed Pinnacle Investment Management owns approximately 35% of Metrics Credit Holdings.

This fact is not a design to pile onto a headline of woes.

Rather the study below of Pinnacle’s stock price reminds us of how prices (not narrative) tell us everything.

Furthermore, how parabolas honour mean reversion quicker than most and how prices can also revert while the mean converges.

September 10, 2026

rob@karriasset.com.au

The torching of private credit investors

Australia investors are slowly being torched by blindly following the blind into private credit funds or products.

Using the word ‘blind’, applies because I (we, us, them) don’t really know what’s inside and I don’t really think many investors have conducted their research and analysis.

But, many have been made to feel embarrassed (see sheep) if they have not invested in private credit.

And private credit is not an asset class, it’s a product offering or range. Debt (or fixed income) is the asset class and there are many other securities to choose from, if that’s your fancy.

In the past I have written and said, the suffix ‘private’ remains code for expensive, opaque, illiquid and sometimes it can proves difficult to leave. (see status exiles).

Think of private schools, private club, private banking etc etc.

It often annoys me when finance industry veterans start a sentence by saying, “I am old enough to remember…….”,

I have had the same disbelief with this current re-invention of debt products as I did when watching the CLO and CDO evolution between 2004 and 2007.

There are going to be a lot of broken portfolios.

and by the way, many, many years ago, this type of real estate lending was called either a first or second mortgage secured against one or two properties, with the funds being held or received in a solicitors trust account.

No one is curing cancer with this product range but they may be causing it.

September 10, 2026