Buy Hold Sell: 5 stocks from the ASX’s hottest sector of FY26

There's no two ways about it. If you weren't holding materials stocks over the past 12 months, you missed a trick. The sector surged more than 45%, blitzing its nearest competitor (consumer staples up ~11%) and outperforming every other positive sector... combined. The sector was powered by insatiable demand for commodities from the AI infrastructure build-out. Gold, silver, copper, platinum and palladium all enjoyed significant price increases, whilst iron ore - still the backbone of the Australian mining sector - didn't suffer the price falls many were expecting. But the stellar performance begs the natural question - can the rally keep going? To explore that question, run the ruler over some of the winners, and each pitch a stock they're backing for the year ahead, Livewire Tom Stelzer is joined by Stephane Andre from Alphinity and Dougal Maple-Brown from Maple-Brown Abbott. Please note this episode was filmed on 1 July 2026.