Stocks that would have earned you the most money on the ASX in 2025
SOURCE:ABC Australia|BY:David Chau
Several gold, lithium and other mining stocks have seen their share price double, and even triple, in 2025 as Australia's share market has had a much better than expected year despite tariffs, economic uncertainty and Donald Trump's ongoing unpredictability.
With 2025 almost over, now is perhaps as good a time as any to look back at where we could have invested our hard-earned money — but probably did not.
Those who had the foresight (or luck) to buy mining stocks at the start of the year would have seen the value of those investments double, or even triple.
Take, for example, Liontown Resources — a battery minerals company that reported a $193 million loss in the previous financial year.
Despite its lacklustre financial performance, Liontown counts mining billionaire Gina Rinehart as its largest shareholder (with an almost 20 per cent stake through her company Hancock Prospecting).
Gold miners dominate the list of best performing stocks in 2025. (Bloomberg, ABC News)
The company has also inked lithium supply deals with Tesla, Ford and LG. And it received a $50 million investment from the federal government in August as part of its Future Made in Australia strategy to prop up certain industries in the national interest.
It is no wonder the share price of this unprofitable, partly taxpayer-funded lithium miner has surged 180 per cent since January, making it one of the best performers on the Australian share market.
Shares of its rivals Core Lithium (up 220 per cent), PLS (up 89 per cent) and IGO (up 65 per cent) have also enjoyed strong gains.
The rally was also driven by a rebound in lithium prices (since crashing in 2023 on concerns about an oversupply of the battery mineral) and expectations of strong demand for electric vehicles in the years ahead, particularly in China.
Skyrocketing gold miners
Another surprise was the sheer number of gold miners in the list of this year's best-performing stocks. They included Regis Resources, Genesis Minerals, Evolution Mining and Newmont Corporation.
Shares of mining companies surged in 2025. (Bloomberg, ABC News)
The value of their shares has roughly tripled in the past year as the price of physical gold has hit new record highs throughout the year, even climbing as high as $US4,532 an ounce last week.
"What's driving the price higher in the last two years is mainly central banks buying gold as they move away from the US dollar and US dollar assets like Treasury bonds," said Gemma Dale, nabTrade's head of investor behaviour.
Another concern is whether the Federal Reserve will continue to make interest rate decisions independently, free from the White House's interference, particularly given the US president's recent efforts to appoint rate-cutting loyalists.
Gemma Dale expects President Trump to have less influence on the markets in 2026. (ABC News: John Gunn)
On top of that, the Fed has already slashed America's interest rates three times in 2025 and is likely to keep cutting them next year, which has contributed to the US dollar losing 10 per cent of its value this year.
So all this, along with concerns about US economic exceptionalism and geopolitical conflict, has led to huge demand for bullion, which in turn has led to the share prices of many Australian gold mining companies rising to their most expensive levels ever.
Trump, TACO and the ASX
Overall, the local share market has done reasonably well, with the ASX 200 up 10 per cent (when dividends are included), and the broader All Ordinaries index gaining 7 per cent.
But for those who bought into the Australian market in early April, after Mr Trump caused a global crash with his so-called liberation day tariff, and sold at a record high in late October, their gains would be much higher at about 24 per cent.
When asked to describe 2025, the words "volatility" and "stress" were what came to mind for Ten Cap's lead portfolio manager and stock picker, Jun Bei Liu.
Jun Bei Liu expects 2026 to be a volatile year for markets. (ABC News: John Gunn)
"It's been very stressful because of the unexpected nature of the tariff negotiations,"
she said.
She said: "No-one expected Trump to be negotiating tariffs so openly, which has been the cause of all this volatility on the markets" — as evidenced by the extreme swings in share prices (up and down) that have regularly occurred throughout the year.
Ms Dale also found 2025 to be quite a stressful year for share investing.
"We had so much concern about what the implications of those particular tariff announcements were going to be, and whether there'd potentially be a catastrophic collapse in global trade, something like we saw during COVID," Ms Dale said.
Donald Trump with his 'reciprocal tariffs' chart on April 3, 2025. (Reuters: Carlos Barria)
"As those fears failed to materialise … everyone jumped on the TACO trade."
TACO is an acronym that stands for "Trump always chickens out", and is used by traders to describe the US president's tendency to make grand tariff threats that cause investor panic — only for him to then backflip to some degree, giving time for markets to rebound.
The TACO trade — which is essentially the belief that markets will recover after Mr Trump's initial shocking announcements — has helped push many countries' share markets to their highest levels ever.
Underperforming compared to foreign markets
However, the ASX appears to have underperformed against its overseas peers, particularly Wall Street's S&P 500 (up 18 per cent), Japan's Nikkei (up 28 per cent) and South Korea's KOSPI (up by a whopping 76 per cent).
Unlike those nations, Australia's technology sector is much smaller, making up only 3 per cent of the local share market's value.
So the ASX has not benefited as much from the artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom, which has led to the share price of Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Tesla ("the Magnificent Seven"), as well as the broader US stock market, soaring to new heights.
Another difference is that those foreign stock markets belong to countries that have seen significant falls in their exchange rates because they are likely to be recipients of further stimulus in 2026 (whether it is interest rate cuts or massive government spending).
In contrast, Australia is more likely to see interest rates rise next year due to the return of higher inflation, which is expected to stick around for longer than what the RBA is comfortable with.
The Australian market had much smaller gains than its overseas peers. (Refinitiv, ABC News)
As a general rule, lower interest rates (and cheaper borrowing costs) usually lead to stock markets rising as investors pile into riskier, speculative investments — and feel more comfortable overpaying for stocks. Rate hikes, on the other hand, tend to have the opposite effect (that is, investors "selling down" and taking profits as the cost of money becomes more expensive).
Overvaluation worries
Concerns about the share market (or certain companies and sectors) being overvalued have grown louder over the past year.
Commonwealth Bank, for instance, has developed a reputation for being the most expensive bank in the world, especially when judged by its price-to-earnings ratio (basically, the amount of money people are willing to pay for each dollar of profit it earns).
After hitting a record high of $191.40 in June, CBA's share price has undergone a major correction, having dropped 16 per cent in six months.
The ASX 200 crashed in April, then scaled a new record high within months. (Refinitiv)
Worries about the market being too expensive have also led to the collective value of the ASX's technology and healthcare stocks falling by more than 20 per cent this year.
Indeed, tech and health care are the worst-performing sectors on the local share market — largely due to steep falls in the share price of biotech giant CSL (-39 per cent), bookkeeping software firm Xero (-33 per cent) and logistics software company WiseTech Global (-45 per cent).
WiseTech, meanwhile, has also taken a hit from personal scandals involving its founder Richard White, which led to him being forced to step down as CEO — though he has since taken up the executive chairman role.
"Valuations are too high for some of the tech and AI-related stocks, and we're seeing a little bit of a reality check for those sectors,"
Ms Liu said.
The tech and healthcare sectors had the steepest falls in 2025. (Refinitiv, ABC News)
She does, however, expect companies like NextDC and Goodman Group, both AI data centre owners, to earn strong profits next year, which will support their share price.
What to expect next year
Ms Liu expects "resources [stocks] should continue to do well, led by copper and gold prices".
"Airlines should do better because oil prices are reasonably low and some of the 'oversold' tech companies could make a comeback," Ms Liu said.
"I think the share market will do OK next year and should deliver a return between 8 and 10 per cent. That's pretty much an average year."
"We expect there'll still be volatility because we still haven't got the final outcome for the China and US tariffs. All we've got from both sides is just a framework."
Although Mr Trump's unpredictability had a significant impact on markets this year, Ms Dale believes he will have far less influence in 2026.
"The markets don't believe him anymore," she said.
"They believe that everything he does is a negotiating tactic, so it's no longer credible. So he can make these big dramatic announcements and they won't be market-moving anymore."
"And I think that's a really interesting outcome because people trust that he will back down. Trump has flooded the airwaves to the point where the market is just a little bit more relaxed.
"At this point, 2026 looks like it could be a solid, boring kind of year with the major sectors holding up OK, but not sensational levels of growth."