ASX Runners of the Week: Iondrive, Australasian, Aruma & Neurizon

Gee, financial markets are really putting the old bend-don’t-break adage to the test. Wall Street and the ASX spent most of the week heading in one direction - down - with Aussie miners getting pummelled on Friday as the index gave up 3.5 per cent on the week. This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week is… Iondrive Limited. Boring old bonds are back on the chopping block this week and no matter how much the US Treasury intervenes, the debt market appears determined to have the final say. Yields continued marching higher - almost vertically so - as investors demanded more compensation for lending money to governments already drowning in sovereign paper. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s highly publicised bond buyback program, designed to restore confidence in Washington’s debt markets, appears to have achieved the opposite. What began as a relatively modest intervention has reportedly expanded to around three times its original size, drawing even more attention to the very problem it was meant to solve. As America’s debt pile expands rapidly, that dreaded word - inflation - has started creeping back into the conversation. It didn’t help that oil decided to join the inflation party either. Brent crude surged to a staggering US$109 a barrel on Thursday night after Houthi fighters reportedly seized a strategic Red Sea port near Bab al-Mandeb Strait - the other Strait - while hopes of a US-Iran breakthrough faded once again. Traders suddenly found themselves contemplating disruptions to two of the world’s most important energy choke points at the same time, leaving Australian families on the other side of the world bracing for even more cost of living pressure. Nothing could encapsulate the modern household squeeze quite like Apple’s latest iPhone launch this week. Why humanity requires a new handset every 12 months, with a new camera lens for an extra $100 will always remain a mystery. Yet this year’s latest flip phone models are set to break the bank, fetching anywhere between $3500 to $5900 a phone come launch. The old Motorola Razr flip phone is starting to look a lot less like nostalgia and more like sound financial planning. Gold gave back about US$75 an ounce on inflation fears and higher interest rates. Copper and lithium, however, continued their remarkable run, with the red metal briefly touching a record US$6.80 per pound before cooling off - like everything - on Friday, with a casual five per cent dump.