While it’s not what you usually expect from a Labor Prime Minister and history hasn’t shown that Anthony Albanese is one of the stock market’s favourite allies, maybe the company he kept on Monday, namely Donald Trump, has rubbed off on him. This new role of the PM as a share price pumper saw rare earths and the general mining sector spike the market index to all-time highs on the back of the critical minerals agreement signed by both leaders.

However, the positivity around this US decision to co-invest in Aussie rare earths and other critical minerals to the tune of $8.5 billion, along with some strong US company reporting, has de-frightened influential stock market players. As a result, gold prices have slumped 5% in a day.

While there are many issues explaining gold at recent record highs, uncertainty linked to Donald Trump’s tariff policies (and what they might do to US economic growth and big Wall Street-listed companies) has been a driver of the yellow bar’s spectacular price rise.

Despite the overall good news, the local stock market is expected to open down at the start of trading today. “Australian shares are set to drop at the open, as the stunning rally in gold, silver and platinum hit a wall. Gold plunged more than 5 per cent, though it held above the $US4100 an ounce mark,” the AFR’s Timothy Moore reports. “Top gold producers Barrick Mining, Newmont Corp and Agnico Eagle Mines all fell by more than 8 per cent. The VanEck Gold Miners ETF, which tracks the biggest producers across the industry, dropped more than 9 per cent, the worst performance since March 2020.”

Back to the positivity that the Albanese-Trump agreement has spread to stocks, and the benchmark ASX200 lifted 62.8 points (or 0.7%) to finish at 9094.7 points. The previous record close was 9068.4 points.

One of the biggest winners from the agreement was Gina Rinehart, who has a significant holding in Arafura Rare Earths, which news.com.au says stands to benefit immediately from the deal, with the US Export-Import Bank considering an investment of up to $460 million in the company’s Nolans project in the Northern Territory. While its share price is up 152.6% in a month, indicating some smarties saw this coming, it’s still only a 48 cents stock.

What was interesting was the benefit other miners saw on the day rare earths were given presidential and prime ministerial support. However, there were other factors at play as well.

Iron ore miners Rio Tinto went up 0.9% to $131.89, while Fortescue gained 1.29% to $20.42. And copper play Sandfire Resources closed 1.14% higher to $15.91, though a BHP report might have helped. The big Australian put on a big 2.29% to $44.13 after reporting first quarter production results for the 2026 financial year, where its copper division reported a 4% rise on last year’s results.

Provided China doesn’t respond with a negative trade reaction, optimism is likely to remain for our mining sector. “In the grand scheme of critical minerals, the initial funding amounts announced in the deal are modest and limited in terms of the companies it will impact,” said BetaShares senior investment strategist Cameron Gleeson to Duncan Evans at news.com.au.

Gleeson said the deal marked the beginning of an expected long-run investment relationship between Australia and the US in the critical minerals space. “But as Albanese said, they are just getting started, with billions more required to secure supply chain independence for these critical minerals that are becoming as essential as oil for national security,” he added.

The only thing that could ruin this presidential/prime ministerial party is a cheesed off China that sees this agreement as anti-Beijing.