The market may be falling today but one group of shares is tumbling more than most – ASX lithium shares.
The battery materials industry is a sea of red on Thursday morning, with heavy declines being printed from lithium miners, explorers, and developers.
Here's a quick summary of how a handful of ASX lithium shares are performing this morning:
- The Allkem Ltd (ASX: AKE) share price is down 4% to $11.29.
- The Azure Minerals Ltd (ASX: AZS) share price is 3.5% to $2.41.
- The Core Lithium Ltd (ASX: CXO) share price is down 3% to 34.5 cents.
- The Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS) share price is down 5% to $3.87.
- The Sayona Mining Ltd (ASX: SYA) share price is down 3.5% to 8.4 cents
Why are ASX lithium shares being sold off?
Investors have been hitting the sell button today following a particularly poor night of trade for their peers on Wall Street.
For example, lithium giant Albemarle Corp (NYSE: ALB), Livent Corp (NYSE: LTHM), and Sociedad Quimica y Minr de Chile SA (NYSE: SQM) ended the session down approximately 10%, 8%, and 7%, respectively.
This was driven largely by a broker note out of Bank of America which revealed that its analysts believe that the outlook for lithium is challenged. So much so, they expect the lithium market to be oversupplied in both 2024 and 2025.
This could mean a tough couple of years for lithium miners if prices of the battery-making ingredient come tumbling down. It also calls into question the valuations of some of the smaller developers that may have based their studies on higher assumed prices.
