Morning news flow was led by some high drama at the Sotheby’s auction house, where one of 13 original copies of the US Constitution was going under the hammer.

In the lead-up, a collective of crypto enthusiasts joined forces to take a run at it, claiming they’d raised up to US$40m through a network they called ConstitutionDAO.

However, after a heated battle the group came up short — outbid by an evil fiat currency Sith Lord (who so far remains anonymous) who shelled out US$43.2m for the 234 year-old document.

Stockhead’s Derek Rose has the full details here.

On markets, local stocks are directionless to end the week with the ASX 200 down slightly shortly after midday EST.

All the major sectors are little-changed, although the big ASX gold stocks underperformed with sharper falls.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for November 19 [intraday]:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

Friday’s small cap gains were led by $11m clean-tech play X2M Connect (ASX:X2M), which landed a $2.6m contract in South Korea.

X2M said its subsidiary was “the successful bidder for a significant remote water monitoring tender covering 20,278 households. The tender was put out by the Korea Water Resources Corporation branch for the city of Jeonju.

Another notable mover was beleaguered casino group Crown Resorts (ASX:CWN), which has been the subject of takeover scrutiny for a fair chunk of this year.

This morning, the company announced that a consortium led by private equity giant Blackstone Inc had lobbed an unsolicited bid to acquire CWN for $12.50 per share.

The Crown board said investors don’t have to take any action yet and it “has not yet formed a view on the merits of the proposal”.

Also climbing was fintech Quickfee (ASX:QFE), which provides payment management technology predominantly for financial services firms.

Shares in QFE have fallen from February highs above 50c to 20c, but the stock got a boost this morning after partnering with the 4,400-strong network of Jim’s franchises in Australia.

The deal “will see Jim’s franchisees being able offer customers the option of paying in four-, six-, nine- or 12-month instalments under a white-label version of QuickFee’s ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) instalments product, to be known as ‘Jim’s Pay Plan’,” QFE said.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for November 19 [intraday]:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin