It’s snowing, and the cricket’s on. Hello Australia.

Let’s just get this “best catch ever in history” out of our system, taken by thug Kiwi upstanding Englishman Ben Stokes:


It was an excellent catch, but only by English standards could it be judged the “best catch ever”. And to no one’s surprise, the standard was maintained:

Seriously, it was arguably not even the best catch in the match.

This will be long tournament for anyone who shares a Sydney office with Poms. Which is everyone, in every Sydney office.

You need a properly cold beer already. Grab one, then settle in with the best stories you might have missed on Stockhead this week.
 

1 – Hot Money Monday: The most in-demand stocks on the ASX right now

This is going well.

Now, you can work out the relative strength index of any stock yourself. Watch the stock for 14 days, note how many times it closed above or under the previous day’s close, and the size of those moves.

RS is the average gain/average loss. Bang it into this cut-out-and-keep calculator from StockCharts.com:

A reading of 70 or more means the companyā€™s been overbought; 30 or below, and it may be undervalued.

The other, easier way is to tune into Hot Money Monday every Monday morning and Sam Jacobs will have it all ready in a table for you.

You can subscribe to that right here, actually.

 

2 – Hereā€™s what stocks the big players in small cap fund management are holding

Fund managers. Who are they, what do you need to know about them and why is it such a big deal that they keep popping up in our weekly Trading Places column?

The thing about small cap fund managers is they survive by taking on board clients and invest their money with the hope of a return.

So if they don’t get return back to those clients, they’re not much longer for this Earth.

So we had a look at seven small cap fund managers that turn up regularly on our pages, and drilled down a little deeper to see what companies they like.

You’re welcome.
 

3 – Scientists have found an element that could power a spacecraft for 400 years

This is why we Science.

But the fact that a rare element capable of powering future deep space missions for up to four centuries was found by UK scientists isn’t even the best bit.

Nope, it’s the part where those UK scientists named the new element “americium”. It’s probably pronounced “ammer-each-eeum” but no one will ever consider that.

For the rest of history, we’ll imagine Trump’s US Space Force ships heading off to intergalactic war powered by America-um.

Either that, or these new “molecules of Liberty” that make up “Freedom Gas”.

That’s LNG to you and me.

Sigh. There’s actually an interesting story in all of this, about how we might responsibly deal with highly radioactive waste.
 

4 – Golden fungi could reveal the location of monster deposits

Now this, this is amazing resources science – and it’s home-cooked. Look:

Gif: CSIRO

That’s gold, that is. Moving around like jazz all under the earth. And fungus is grabbing it as it goes past.

The fungus is called fusarium oxsporum. The weird thing is gold is virtually inactive – there’s no discernible reason why a fungus would need it.

For now, all that matters to investors and explorers is whether finding fungus with gold on its roots is an indication of a monster deposit somewhere lower.
 

5 – Buru reveals Andrew Forrest is now a shareholder; what other small caps does Twiggy own?

Buru Energy got a “please explain” from the ASX about why its share price may have risen 50 per cent between May 23 and May 27.

The best answer Buru could give was point to an AFR article which noted that a certain investor had taken a “secret stake” in it. Namely:

Picture: Getty Images

No, not faux-bloke Nick Cummins; Twiggy Forrest, aka represented by Forrest Family Investments, as trustee for a company called Peepingee Trust.

It didn’t have to be disclosed, because the stake was just under the 5 per cent substantial holder limit.

Clearly, the hoi polloi watches how the other half live. So here are a bunch of other smalls caps Twiggy likes the look of.
 

6 – Brokers have warned of an ā€˜unprofitable tech stocksā€™ bubble, but these ones are doing just fine

Almost everybody’s waiting for the buy-now-pay-later bubble to burst. The rest are cashing in, and cashing in, and cashing in.

Here we go again with the talk of busts. The latest doomboner tenting analyst pants comes from Perpetual and Canaccord, concerned that stocks that have boomed in recent months will fall as investors realise they are not profitable.

Splitit’s recent decline may be an early warning, but for now, here are 17 ASX tech stocks holding the cold spoon of at least a $1 million profit so far in 2019 alone.
 

7 – Top 10 at 10: These ASX small caps have jumped out of the gate today

Here’s another new thing we’ve added to our eternally patient journos’ daily workload.

It’s short, and simple. Which stocks were primed at the jump? To both fly and fail?

It doesn’t actually drop at 10, because ASX stocks come online in alphabetical order, and it takes until about 10.15am to see them all in action:

But catch our tweet around 10.30am and it probably still won’t be too late to get onboard for the rest of the day’s ride.
 

8 – Money Talks: RM Corporate Finance director Guy Le Pageā€™s top rare earths, iron ore and tech picks

ā€œWeā€™ve been following Greenland Minerals & Energy, which has put on 40 per cent over the last three months.ā€

Don’t you just hate how experts seem to be really smart?

That’s RM Corporate Finance exec Guy Le Page telling us how much cash they all made on a rare earths bet.

But the signs were all there for Triple G when Lynas Corporation in Malaysia hit political problems, because Tim Treadgold told us all so.

And again when Chinese president Xi Jinping visited the southern Chinese province of Jiangxi, maybe to tell all the people there who produce potentially 97 per cent of the stuff needed to make smartphones that they’re about to get tangled up in a trade war with the US.

Greenland (ASX:GGG) is Le Page’s top tip. Ours is listen to smart people.

Here are his other two.
 

9 – Psst. Want to invest in an MMA startup and turn ā€˜wimpsā€™ into ā€˜warriorsā€™ around the world?

Well, the kind of “warriors” who trip people over, pin them and lay a stack of childlike haymakers on the back of their heads until they give up.

But apparently MMA is a sport. And with sport, comes fitness.

And with fitness – especially 20-week regimes that teach office workers how to fight – comes money. Because everyone has an inner Tyler Durden waiting to bust out.

Just control your rage, please. Potentially make some money instead by sinking it into the Wimp 2 Warrior programme currently being offered as an EOI on crowdfunding platform Birchal.

ā€œThe business is fully formed and throwing off seven figures of revenue and growing revenue at triple digits,ā€ former CEO of Bridge Financial Services and W2W co-founder Nick Langton told us.

It’s better than being like this guy, we suppose:


 

10 – Biotech entrepreneur Paul Hopper tells us why he joined ā€˜treasure chestā€™ Suda

And finally, who doesn’t love treasure?

One of the best in the biz at finding it is serial Australian entrepreneur Paul Hopper.

Hopper made his most recent motza last year when he sold cancer drug company Viralytics to big pharma for cool half a billion.

Suda, however, has a market cap of $13 million and shares worth well less than one cent. So why has Hopper just agreed to be its chairman?

Yes, this is the part where you have to click to find out. Ha.

Thanks for being a Stockhead this week. Have a great weekend. Go ‘Straya.