Pilbara and Liontown both rallied on the ASX at last Friday’s close, but others fell. What’s the story with lithium right now?
Friday’s close on the ASX showed something the lithium sector has not produced for most of the past year.
PLS Group, the company formerly known as Pilbara Minerals, closed up 2.92 per cent at $6.34. Liontown Resources closed up 3.11 per cent at $2.32. Core Lithium, on the same trading day, closed down 3.28 per cent at $0.30.
For a sector that has historically moved in lockstep, three names heading in two directions is out of the ordinary. So what’s going on?
Prices doing the heavy lifting
The underlying commodity price (or prices) have taken off in recent months as demand for new batteries amid the fuel crisis spikes. Spodumene Concentrate is up 66 per cent year-to-date, while Lithium Carbonate is up 54 per cent in the same period.
Up: PLS Group (ASX: PLS)
The PLS rally on Friday extends a recovery that has been building for several months. The stock traded as low as A$1.07 over the past twelve months, against a 52-week high of A$6.59 reached recently. The current price puts PLS within 4 per cent of that high.
Armina Rosenberg of Minotaur Capital, speaking on Switzer Investing TV recently, named PLS as her Aussie lithium stock of choice, citing the rise in battery-powered motoring following the Iran fuel crisis.
Both PLS and Liontown have strong output from their respective Pilgangoora and Kathleen Valley projects. And naturally, higher spot prices typically mean higher revenues for the miners.
Down: Core Lithium (ASX: CXO)
Not everyone is celebrating, however. Core Lithium fell on the same day that other lithium peers rose.
Investors shunned Core Lithium on Friday due to output. Or lack thereof. The company’s Finniss project in the Northern Territory was placed on “care and maintenance” in January 2024 after the spodumene price cratered. Core Lithium has spent the period since then conducting studies on restart options, exploration on adjacent tenements, and updates to the Definitive Feasibility Study for the BP33 underground deposit.
The most recent CXO quarterly report, released in April 2026, confirmed Finniss remains on care and maintenance and that the company is continuing to assess restart conditions. Core Lithium announced the mine would reopen last week, but rain damage has reportedly affected the company’s ability to get its minerals to port.
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