It certainly was an eventful week for the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO). A selloff on Thursday led to the benchmark index giving back its earlier gains to rise just 0.1% over the four days to 7,453.3 points.
While a number of shares rose with the market, some climbed more than most. Here's why these were the best performing ASX 200 shares last week:
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield CDI (ASX: URW)
The Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield share price was the best performer on the ASX 200 last week with a 10.3% gain. Other than revealing the termination of a debt facility, there wasn't any news out of this shopping centre operator. However, its ASX listed shares tend to follow the lead of its European shares, which performed very positively.
Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS)
The Pilbara Minerals share price continued its meteoric rise and climbed a further 9.4% over the four days. Investors have been buying Pilbara Minerals and other lithium miners in recent weeks thanks partly to a bullish broker note out of Macquarie. Its analysts believe lithium prices could stay at record levels for the next four years. In light of this, it put an outperform rating and $3.70 price target on its shares.
Lynas Rare Earths Ltd (ASX: LYC)
The Lynas share price wasn't far behind with a gain of 8.8%. This may have been driven by an announcement at the end of the previous week which revealed that its Malaysian permanent disposal facility (PDF) for Water Leach Purification (WLP) residue has finally received environmental approval from the relevant Malaysian regulatory authorities.
Santos Ltd (ASX: STO)
The Santos share price was on form and charged 7.6% over the period. A decent rise in oil prices appears to have been behind this rise. Oil prices pushed higher amid unrest in Kazakhstan and an outage in Libya. This was enough to offset concerns over rising COVID cases and OPEC's plan to increase production next month.
