US President Donald Trump’s plans for a new round of military strikes against Iran on a “moment’s notice” sent the S&P/ASX 200 index down 0.47% to 8,564 points, with gold producer Predictive Discovery (ASX:PDI) among the bottom-performing stocks.
Predictive shares fell by 7.8% to 83 cents while Peregrine Gold (ASX:PGD) slumped 12.5% to $0.105 per unit in the first hour of trading on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Other notable losses include Reach Resources (ASX:RR1), down 9.09% to $0.01 per share, and Cygnus Metals (ASX:CY5) — down 8.7% to $0.105 per share.
Trump temporarily postponed a planned 20 May 2026 military attack against Iran, following pleas from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates leaders.
“Serious negotiations are now taking place… [and] we will not be doing the scheduled attack on Iran tomorrow but have further instructed them to be prepared to go forward with a full, large-scale assault of Iran on a moment’s notice,” Trump says.
“A deal will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all countries in the Middle East and beyond.”
“Over the last five days the index has lost 0.77% and 1.72% year to date,” the ASX markets website says.
As Mining.com.au previously reported, the index reported a third year of “positive returns” in 2025 despite “concerns about the state of the world”.
“Big option trades using longer-dated contracts we found in January appear to be looking for continuation of this upward trend in 2026,” the ASX says.
Analysts agree that the Iran-Israel conflict has created significant investor uncertainty across the ASX index.
Write to Richard Szabo at Mining.com.au
Images: Marcus Reubenstein via Unsplash
