ASX Small Cap Lunch Wrap: Who’s getting into the Christmas spirit today?

Local stocks are feeling the Christmas spirit this morning, with broad gains to kick off the month of December.

The ASX All Ordinaries index surged nearly 1 per cent higher in Tuesday morning trade and was up 63 points (0.93 per cent) at 6,805 by lunchtime in Sydney.

The index is up 49 per cent since its mid-March torpor.

Equity markets in the US suffered a round of profit-taking overnight. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 272 points, or 0.9%, to 29,638, the S&P 500 lost 17 points, or 0.5%, to 3,622 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 7 points, or 0.1%, to 12,199.

Gold has plunged to a five-month low at $US1,778 per ounce ($2,416/oz) in Tuesday trade.

Optimism over a swift vaccine-fuelled economic recovery has dented the allure for safe havens, said analysts at stockbrokers Argonaut Securities.

Meanwhile, crypto investors are clamouring for Bitcoin to climb above the $US20,000 summit, after the cryptocurrency rose to new all-time highs this morning.

WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks at 12pm Tuesday December 1:

Swipe or scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort.

Stocks highlighted in yellow have made market-moving announcements

The top gainer in ASX Tuesday trade was Netccentric (ASX:NCL) which surged more than 63 per cent without any fresh news.

Investors appeared to like the social media marketing company’s purchase of business partner Docono Holdings’ shares in Asian markets blogging network, Nuffnang Live Commerce.

Netccentric is now the largest shareholder at 57 per cent in Nuffnang Live Commerce a social commerce platform.

The company published an investor presentation on Monday mapping out its growth strategy in Asia’s digital marketing sector.

Netccentric has 300 clients and 13,000 social media influencers in countries including, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia.

The presentation said the Asia-Pacific market is set to become the world’s largest for social media marketing by 2024.

Classic Minerals (ASX:CLZ) has made some steady gains over the past week of trading on the ASX.

The company has yet to provide any business updates beyond a notice on the ASX last Wednesday.

This notice said Western Areas (ASX:WSA) had withdrawn its objection to Classic Minerals application for a mining lease for its Kat Gap gold project in the Goldfields region of WA.

The objection centred on issues to do with a water pipeline that runs below Classic Minerals’ tenements to a Western Areas mine.

“The positive conclusion of this matter brings the company one step closer to cash flow as it marches towards production in 2021,” said Classic Minerals in its notice from last week.

Carnegie Clean Energy (ASX:CCE) was another stock to triumph Tuesday, adding to share gains it made on Monday.

A day earlier the clean energy company that uses wave power to generate electricity announced a tie-up with Hewlett Packard.

LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks at 12pm Tuesday, December 1:

Swipe or scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort.

Strickland Metals (ASX:STK) had an off day in Tuesday trade, falling as much as 35 per cent after it posted a drilling update.

The progress report was on drilling at its Doolgunna project in WA’s Bryah Basin which is prospective for volcanic massive sulphide copper and gold mineralisation.

The update said its first drill hole at Doolgunna had failed to intersect a mapped anomaly containing copper and zinc.

The explorer is planning to drill two new holes directly under the central part of the mapped copper-zinc anomaly at a greater depth of 300m, compared with a target depth of 180m for the first drill hole.

The project is in the vicinity of several mining operations including, Sandfire Resources’ (ASX:SFR) DeGrussa copper-gold project.

Exploration company 3D Resources (ASX:DDD) announced assay results for a maiden drilling program for its Adelong gold project in southern NSW.

Results for its Currajong prospect showed drilling at its northern end did not yield significant gold results, while at its eastern zone drilling intersected quartz and pyrite mineralisation.

At its Donkey Hill prospect, a first drill hole was unable to reach its target depth; a second intersected some narrow quartz veins with a hit at 2m at 2.3 grams per tonne gold, and a third did intersect some quartz veining that carries anomalous gold values, but the grades were low.