ASX Small Cap Lunch Wrap: Who’s a ‘beautiful and unique snowflake’ today?

• Buffett makes $250m instantly as Snowflake doubles on IPO
• ABS jobs data mocks expectations, as 100K jobs added
• Another micro-cap hits +750%, brakes

Despite a subdued session on global markets, two themes that have come to dominate the post-Covid narrative — tech strength and liquid capital markets — were in full force overnight.

Another blockbuster tech IPO quickly became the talk of Wall Street, as cloud-based data company Snowflake raised more than $US3bn (~$4.1bn) via the sale of 28m shares at $US120 a pop.

Upon listing, the stock promptly doubled and closed at just under $US254, giving Snowflake an opening-day valuation of around $US70bn.

It follows an announcement last week that tech heavyweight Salesforce and Warren Buffett will both pitch in $US250m in a private placement following the listing. The deal was struck at the IPO price, which leaves both investors well into the money after day one.

Like most fast-scaling tech players, Snowflake isn’t yet profitable but revenues are growing fast (doubling to $US242m over the past six months).

And even the ‘Oracle of Omaha’ (Buffett) appears to have moved on from the idea that tech darlings need to be making money to warrant an investment from Berkshire Hathaway.

On local markets, economists were left in surprise after ABS data showed Australia’s economy added 111,000 jobs in August, which saw the unemployment rate fall to 6.8 per cent.

The numbers smashed forecasts for a monthly jobs decline of 35,000 due to the Victoria lockdowns, and an expected lift in unemployment to 7.7 per cent.

The ASX200 has followed US stocks lower, with major miners dragging on the index after benchmark iron ore prices fell more than three per cent overnight.

But sentiment was still strong on the ASX Emerging Companies Index, which is on track for its fifth straight day of gains.

WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks at 12pm Thursday September 17:

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

The midday winner’s list was led by another titanic move in a micro-cap stock for seemingly no reason, before it went into a trading halt.

$8m mining company Admiralty Resources (ASX:ADY) surged higher before being placed into a halt shortly after the opening bell. It follows a number of huge gains yesterday that caught the market’s eye in afternoon trade.

Elsewhere, radiopharmaceutical company Cyclopharm (ASX:CYC) continued its strong rally, after announcing on Tuesday that the Phase 3 trial in the US for its Technegas technology had met the Primary Efficacy Endpoint.

CYC said the announcement “de-risks” the pathway to sell Technegas — a lung-imaging treatment — into the US market by 2021.

LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks at 12pm Thursday September 17:

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