• All eyes on Warrego battle to see who’s gonna blink first
  • ASX 200 closes 0.3% up for the day, easing from 0.7% highs
  • Astrologers claim victory as Jupiter Energy zooms for no reason at all  

Happy Monday – and what a day it’s been, after the benchmark put in a whole lotta huffin’ and puffin’ but didn’t even come close to blowing the house down.

It’s finishing the day 0.3% higher, easing from a +0.7% mid-afternoon position as the market seemed to get short of breath.

Today’s rise was mostly on the back of climbs in the Materials sector – iron ore broke through the $100 per tonne mark and that helped the likes of Fortescue (ASX:FMG) and other big miners to add to their already-considerable bulk throughout the day.

FMG was the top performer of the cohort, though – up an eye-popping 8% for the day, blitzing the $20 per share ceiling it’s recently been butting up against like a blowfly on a window on a hot summer’s day.

Other sectors have vastly improved since lunchtime, though, with several moving from negative to positive results as the day wore on – Most Improved goes to the Energy sector, shifting from -0.5% to lead the day on +1.50%, pipping Materials at the post on +1.47%.

Utilities (-1.07%) and Industrials (-0.80%) were still in the bin by the time everyone was packing up to go home.

As mentioned at lunchtime, all eyes this morning are the ongoing bidding war for Warrego (ASX:WGO), which has Gina Rinehart and Kerry Stokes’ Beach Energy (ASX:BPT) engaged in an all-out brawl for control of the energy play.

At the time of writing, the Warrego board has assessed the Hancock takeover offer at $0.28 per share to be the superior proposal compared to Stokes’ Beach Energy (ASX:BPT) offer of $0.25 – because the Warrego board can do basic maths.

But it’s quite obvious that the market is punting on Stokes trying to prove that his wallet is thicker than Rinehart’s hide, with Warrego trading 9.7% higher this morning at $0.31 per share – precisely where you’d expect Stokes’ next bid to land if he’s following the pattern of a $0.03 bump to the offer price.

Indeed, The Australian is reporting this afternoon that some analysts are certain that there’s another bid in the wings for Warrego, citing Petra Capital’s energy analyst Kieran Barratt.

“Despite numerous bids, we believe this still undervalues Warrego and references the Mitsui/AWE deal in 2019 which transacted at $1.20/GJ of 2P Reserve of $1.92/GJ adjusted for gas price differential,” Barratt writes.

“The economics of the AWE deal implied it should have a 35c per share price,” The Australian says, noting that Petra Capital has a 41c price target on Warrego.

This could get interesting, and very expensive, depending on how deep down the back of the couch Stokes and Rinehart are prepared to go digging.

 

NOT THE ASX

News from Asia today is… well, some if it’s pretty appalling. Reports out of North Korea claim that three teenagers were sentenced to death and executed by firing squad a few weeks ago.

One of the teens was executed for murdering his mother, which seems relatively fair… ‘eye for an eye’ and all that… but the other two were executed for distributing South Korean movies, which seems somewhat less than fair by comparison.

Not that the news appears to have had much of an effect on local markets in the region… the Hang Seng was 3.5% higher, and Shanghai’s tracking 1.5% higher.

Japan’s Nikkei, however, is flatter than the mood at a “Let’s see what this Squid Games show is all about” party, with the index there struggling to make headway, up just 0.01% for the day so far.

Meanwhile, in Crypto news, there’s been a stark lesson in the difference between letting your US customers down compared to letting your Nigerian customers down.

In America, if you upset your investors, they go on Twitter and bitch about it – but in Nigeria, they turn up at the office armed with guns and start beating the crap out of anyone who works there. #CrudeButEffective.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

Today’s chart-topper is still Jupiter Energy (ASX:JPR), which is sitting atop a 39.1% climb today on bugger all news. Similarly, home builder Simonds Group (ASX:SIO) is up 30.4%, also on no news.

Outside of the fast-moving penny dreadfuls, Bellavista Resources (ASX:BVR) has added 17.8%, most likely a beneficiary of soaring iron ore prices, while Hawsons Iron (ASX:HIO) has produced a well-timed reminder that it’s holding Letters of Intent for the offtake of up to 58 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of high-grade Hawsons Supergrade concentrate.

HIO is trading 15.5% higher at the close of play.

The rest of the high-percentage gainers have been the ultra-small market cap wanderers, most of which are basically being pushed around by the eddies of market currents caused by the swings among the big players elsewhere in their respective market segments.

All the details of who moved where are in the charts above (the Winners) and below (the ones we don’t like to talk about because it’s mean to go kicking people when their day has already been a bit s–t.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the least best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

 

WHAT YOU MAY’VE MISSED

Sacgasco Limited (ASX:SGC) has completed a crucial step in its bid to start dragging gas from the bottom of the ocean, having completed field survey work using the Cassandra VI survey vessel from Hurricane Geo Inspection Survey.

“Survey operations have been completed at Cadlao and Nandino to Noble Denton Technical Policy Board requirements to assess the seafloor and near seabed conditions in preparation for drilling,” SGC says.

“This included a bathymetry survey, seabed survey analysis, sub-bottom profiling and other geophysical data acquisition and interpretation.”

There will be further details on how the project is progressing as they come to hand.

Meanwhile, Sierra Nevada Gold (ASX:SNX) says it’s finished six Phase 1 RC holes at New Pass project, representing the first drill testing at the historic mining precinct in 40 years, with all holes “intersecting visually encouraging mineralisation in line with expectations”.

SNX was forced to curtail drilling because of the arrival of winter, which (possibly) makes the enormously long drill bits shrink like they’ve been in the pool all day – but the RC drilling that did occur “appears to have intersected the main historically productive gold veins targeted below the level of historic workings”.

Black Mountain Energy (ASX:BME) has replied to the ASX, which had a few queries about some stuff that the company had dropped into various documents – including details about government export exemptions, any conditions attached to that and a few other odds and sods.

BME has flat-out told the ASX that nothing was in their recent announcements that shouldn’t be, and nothing was left out or leaked prior to those announcements being released.

“The exemption does not refer to any specific conditions, licences, agreements or approvals that must be satisfied, obtained or agreed by BME prior to agreeing a Domestic Gas Commitment Agreement with the State,” BME says.

“However, there are a number of licences, agreements and approvals that are required to develop a gas project in Western Australia that are considered customary for projects of this nature.

“It is unclear at this time which of these (if any) the State will specifically require to have been obtained prior to entering a Domestic Gas Commitment Agreement.”

Which is a lot of words to say “Nothing to see here. Move along, please.”

And a super-quick mention that the Federal Court has given the greenlight for Thoma Bravo to snap up 100% of Nearmap (ASX:NEA).

It is expected that a copy of the Court’s orders will be lodged with ASIC tomorrow, at which time the Scheme will become legally effective, and Nearmap will be suspended from trading when the bell rings this time tomorrow.

 

TRADING HALTS

White Rock Minerals (ASX:WRM) – Equity Raise.

Bannerman Energy (ASX:BMN) – News incoming about the company’s Etango-8 Uranium Project Definitive Feasibility Study.

Way2Vat (ASX:W2V) – Capital Raise.

Red Mountain Mining (ASX:RMX) – Capital Raise and Material Acquisition.

Olympio Metals (ASX:OLY) – News incoming about a potential acquisition by the Company.

Xantippe Resources (ASX:XTC) – Capital Raise.

Singular Health Group (ASX:SHG) – acquisition and a proposed Capital Raise.

 

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