The commodity trade of 2022 continued on Tuesday with several ASX 200 mining shares clipping their 52-week gains in today's trading.
Lithium was the flavour of the day with the battery metal advancing back to its record highs, levels not seen since March of this year. Let's take a closer look.
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Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS)
Shares of Pilbara Minerals shot to intraday highs of $4.79 by midday today and then levelled off to finish trading at $4.74 apiece.
The share has caught a strong bid lately and set a number of new highs to its latest destination in today's session.
Brokers like it too, with analysts at Macquarie recently prescribing a $5.60 price target on the lithium share.
This is backed by a strong outlook for the price of lithium, which Barrenjoey Markets has tipped to gain around another 80% over the coming 2 years.
Pilbara shares are up 115% in the last 12 months of trade.
Mineral Resources Limited (ASX: MIN)
Shares of Mineral Resources shot to 52-week highs today despite no market-sensitive news from the miner. After reaching a high of $75.65, it finished the day trading at $73.80.
Noteworthy however is a broker note from UBS projecting tremendous upside for the share should its rumoured demerger plans go ahead.
As we noted earlier today, the broker assigned "a price target of $83 was provided along with a rating of buy".
After whipsawing from December to July, Mineral Resources shares finally broke out to the upside on 18 August and surpassed a key resistance level it had faced 3 times before that.
It now trades at its highest level in more than 5 years and shows no signs of slowing down at this pace.
Allkem Ltd (ASX: AKE)
Allkem also shot to its 52-week high today, clipping the $16 per share mark before settling back down to $15.99 at market close.
The $10.20 billion company by market capitalisation also caught a bid today following a bullish broker note from Bell Potter.
Analysts at the firm have reassigned their buy rating on the share and value it at $20.04 apiece, implying around a 25% potential upside at the current price.
Chief to the broker's thesis is its forecasts on the price of lithium. It believes the market will continue rallying the battery metal into the coming years as well.
With that, Allkem extended its gains out to 54% for the year to date today and 74% for the last 12 months.
