ASX Slips as Judo Plunges

The S&P/ASX 200 finished the week down 0.7 per cent. Gold logged a fourth straight weekly loss, though a late rebound above US$4000 an ounce gave miners a lift into the close. Easing inflation data out of the United States took some pressure off rate expectations after a tougher Fed meeting the week before. Investors also rotated hard into defensives like utilities and consumer staples as a fresh round of profit warnings hit other parts of the market. Tech shares dragged too, after a sell-off across Asian chip stocks and reports OpenAI (parent company of ChatGPT) could delay its public listing.

This week’s best performers

Pro Medicus Limited (ASX:PME) +9.31%

Pro Medicus, whose software helps hospitals view and store medical scans, extended its month-long rally this week, up around 40 per cent since late May. The push came from a binding agreement with Echo IQ, an AI cardiology business that flags heart failure risk from imaging. Pro Medicus will invest $10 million through convertible notes, with another $10 million on FDA clearance, plus a reseller deal for Echo IQ's tools in the US. CEO Sam Hupert called it another plug-in rather than something built in-house.

Ramsay Health Care Limited (ASX:RHC) +9.14%

Ramsay's rally kept rolling this week, with the stock up 23 per cent in 2026 against a flat ASX 200, after Perpetual portfolio manager Nathan Hughes called it one of the most undervalued names on the index. His case leans on the planned demerger of European arm Ramsay Santé, letting the company focus on lifting how efficiently its Australian hospitals run, plus a strong balance sheet and a large pile of unused franking credits that could eventually fund capital returns.

SGH Limited (ASX:SGH) +7.44%

SGH, a diversified industrial group whose businesses span heavy machinery, building products and energy, jumped this week after announcing an on-market share buy-back of up to A$500 million, roughly 2.8 per cent of shares on issue, set to begin alongside its FY26 results in August. Buy-backs tend to attract investors because they signal management thinks its own stock is undervalued, choosing to spend cash buying shares rather than on anything else.

This week’s worst performers

Judo Capital (ASX:JDO) -40.74%

Judo Capital had the worst trading day in its history on Thursday, crashing as much as 46 per cent after slashing both its FY26 and FY27 profit guidance. The bank blamed provisions (money set aside to cover loans it doesn't expect to get repaid) against three bad loans across different sectors, with the downgrade extending into next year too, signalling the problem runs deeper than a one-off. The reaction wiped out roughly $500 million in market value. 

Predictive Discovery Limited (ASX:PDI) -23.81%

Predictive Discovery, the explorer behind the Bankan gold project in Guinea, fell sharply this week with no company-specific news behind it. As a pre-production explorer with no revenue of its own, its share price moves almost entirely on sentiment toward gold, not anything it's actually doing day to day. After a strong run, investors started taking profits this week, the kind of swing that comes with holding a stock this volatile.

Elevra Lithium Limited (ASX:ELV) -19.24%

Elevra Lithium, the Quebec hard-rock lithium producer, gave back some of its enormous 2026 gains as battery metals sentiment weakened this week, with lithium stocks broadly under pressure rather than anything specific to the company. It's still up more than 400 per cent over the past year on the back of its North American Lithium project, making it one of the best performing stocks on the ASX this year.