How the Nasdaq stall benefits Aussie miners

Capital is rotating out of the Nasdaq and into Australian mining stocks as iron ore, copper and commodity earnings drive a resource-led rally.

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How times can change. For years the only game worth playing in the investment markets was going long the Nasdaq. After all, it had the tech stocks, the earnings growth and the tailwind of a rising US dollar.

Back in October 2025, something shifted.

We didn’t know it then, but it marked the peak of the Nasdaq at a high of 26,182 points. Here we are in March, and that high hasn’t been broken. It’s been four months to nowhere.

I’m certainly not saying that high will never be exceeded. It might happen next week, for all I know. But it can’t hurt to see what’s been happening, and how Aussie investors have benefited, and should continue to.

Investment capital is rotating away from the American tech sector and diversifying into other markets with different characteristics. The ASX is a case in point. Bank and resources dominate our market, not tech. Something similar can be said for London’s FTSE too. It’s funny to say both markets used to be criticised for their lack of technology firms.

 

The rotation into Australian resources

For Australia, it’s mostly a commodity story. Big Tech needs resources for its AI buildout, and sovereign risk means supply chains aren’t as secure as they once were.

There hasn’t been enough investment in future supply for a lot of resources, either. Mining matters now more than it has for a long time.

Australian bonds and stocks are catching “safe haven” flows too. Bloomberg reported the other week that investors are “piling in” to Australian bonds as “one of the world’s safest and highest yielding sovereign debt markets”.

The resource boom is underpinning this. That’s good for you, me and every super fund in the country. There’s no real reason to think this is going to stop anytime soon, either.

 

Iron ore cash flow and the big miners

Case in point is a stock like Fortescue Metals (ASX: FMG). FMG makes its money from iron ore. There are very few investors who are excited about iron ore right now. But that misses an important point. Iron ore at US$100 per tonne is still a very tidy price. It was half this back in 2015.

The iron ore price is so good, in fact, that FMG Chairman Twiggy Forrest and family will get about $700m in dividends when FMG pays out their interim dividend at the end of March (they own about 37% of FMG).

The positive cash flow is huge.

What’s true of FMG is also true of BHP Group (ASX: BHP) and Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) too.

They can, in turn, use this iron ore money to fund acquisitions and investments in more prospective and supply-constrained parts of the resource market – or pay it out to shareholders. Iron ore gives all three a solid base of earnings.

 

We wrote about this tailwind in November

Here at Marcus Today, we wrote about the opportunity in the Aussie resource sector back in November last year. We said…

“We only need iron ore to stay roughly where it is right now for a nice tailwind to build up behind the big miners.”

Look at BHP in the last four months…

We can thank the move up in copper for a good chunk of this rally. Now we have oil and natural gas rallying because of the Iran escalation.

Higher commodity prices are giving the Aussie market something it hasn’t seen for three years: earnings growth.

That’s what we want to see as investors.

 

China could drive the next leg higher

What could cause another leg up in the mining space? We don’t have to look too far.

It’s China. The world’s biggest trading nation is still the main consumer of commodities, but hasn’t really been firing in recent years. They are due to release their next five-year plan this month. President Trump will travel to China in April too.

If the market gets any hint of a major Chinese expansion via stimulus, we can expect natural resource markets to respond even more positively than they are now.

Of course, the reverse is true too. But odds are the resource bull market has a long way to go, with the usual dips and volatility on the way.

My colleague Henry Jennings thinks BHP could even get to $100 per share in five years. I suspect he’ll be right too.