Iluka Resources, Evolution Mining lead mining selloff
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The news: Iluka Resources and Evolution Mining led a broad selloff across ASX miners in morning trade, after the stocks were hit by downgrades from Citi and Macquarie.
The numbers: Iluka (-4.7%) and Evolution (-4.2%) were the two worst performing ASX 200 stocks by midday AEDT.
Materials, down 1.2%, was the worst performing sector as the ASX 200 index lowered 0.3%.
The context: Citi downgraded Iluka from 'buy' to 'neutral' and cut its target price from $6.10 to $5.60 after the mineral sands miner failed to meet estimates for the December quarter.
Macquarie kept its 'outperform' rating on Iluka but trimmed its target price by 4% to $6.80 on the miner's lower near-term earnings outlook.
Morgan Stanley kept its 'equal-weight' rating and $5.80 price target on Iluka. Goldman Sachs remained 'buy' rated, but cut its price target 5% to $7.40.
Meanwhile, Macquarie and UBS both downgraded their ratings on Evolution and raised their target prices on the gold and copper miner.
Citi lifted its target price from $5.50 to $5.80 and downgraded its rating from 'buy' to 'neutral', flagging an 80% rise in the share price over the last 12 months.
Macquarie hiked its target price by 6% to $5.50 per share, and lowered its rating from 'neutral' to 'underperform', seeing the shares as "fully valued" after a 22% share price lift this month.
UBS retained its 'neutral' rating and $5.40 price target on Evolution, which reiterated its full-year guidance on Wednesday, but recorded lower output for the March 2025 quarter.
The sources: Macquarie research, Citi research, Morgan Stanley research, Goldmach Sachs research
