“The longer-term shift towards EV’s is going to be huge, and a country like China has already been an early adopter of EV’s, and therefore any potential reduction in demand for that could obviously have a pretty big impact.”

Pilbara Minerals also announced a joint venture with aquaculture company Calix on Monday for the development of a demonstration plant at the Pilgangoora Project with “the aim of producing lithium salts via an innovative midstream value-added refining process utilising Calix’s patented calcination technology”.

It will own 55 per cent of the joint venture and Calix 45 per cent, with each party funding their share of operating and capital costs. Calix also closed lower on Monday, dipping 3 per cent to $5.15.

All four big banks held steady on Monday after flip-flopping between negative and positive territory last week. Westpac was the only one to close marginally lower, down 0.5 per cent to $23.76. However, it wasn’t a smooth day for Bank of Queensland (BoQ), which slipped 5.6 per cent to $7.14 after news that chief executive George Frazis was leaving the bank.

Infant formula maker Bubs Australia’s share price copped a beating, dropping 13 per cent to 30 cents, despite an uneventful AGM and positive results for the first quarter of the 2023 financial year. Although its gross revenue rose 28 per cent to $23.6 million for the quarter compared to the same period the previous year, investor sentiment on the company cooled due to its underwhelming outlook.

“Short-term revenue growth is likely to be constrained,” Bubs Australia CEO Kristy Carr said at the AGM on Monday. “We expect 1H23 revenue to be largely consistent with prior year, with strong growth momentum to be realised in 2H23. Overall, we expect FY23 to deliver healthy growth in revenue and further improvements to our product margin.”

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On Wall Street on Friday, the S&P 500 fell 1.14 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, to close at 4,026.12. Nearly 70 per cent of stocks in the benchmark index gained ground, but the broader market was dragged lower by technology companies. High valuations for companies in the technology sector tend to give it more heft in pushing the market higher or lower.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 152.97 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 34,347.03. The Nasdaq fell 58.96 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 11,226.36.

US crude oil prices fell and weighed down energy stocks.

Retailers were mixed as shoppers headed to stores for Black Friday. Home Depot rose 1.5 per cent and Best Buy fell 1.4 per cent.

Investors remain concerned about whether the Federal Reserve can tame the hottest inflation in decades by raising interest rates without going too far and causing a recession.

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