ASX Small Cap Lunch Wrap: Who’s blaming rats for eating all the drugs today?

Police in India have blamed rats for eating about 200kg of cannabis that a court demanded be produced as evidence during a trial for people facing smuggling charges.

Police station in the northern city of Mathura says they have a serious rodent problem, with several stations across the district blaming rats for eating evidence.

“There is no place in the police station where the stored goods can be saved from the rats,” public prosecutor Ranveer Singh said.

“Being small in size, the rats have no fear of police, nor can the police officers be considered experts in solving the problem.”

It sounds just like the kind of excuse a bunch of high police officers would come up with.

And it’s not the first time.

Back in 2017, prosecutors in eastern Jharkhand state told a court that rats consumed nearly 45kg of marijuana that was stored in a trafficking case involving 150kg of drugs.

Apparently, rats are alcoholics too, with police in Bihar state blaming rats for drinking thousands of litres of alcohol kept in storerooms in one of the country’s few dry states.

“Rats are tiny animals and they have no fear of the police. It’s difficult to protect the drug from them”

Police in India alleging rats ate their haul of seized cannabis https://t.co/0hDsi4PmFr

— Max Daly (@Narcomania) November 24, 2022

TO MARKETS

The ASX 200 is trading up 0.25% at lunch today, with nine out of 11 sectors in the green.

Consumer Discretionary was leading the winners, up 1.26%. 

Wesfarmers (ASX:WES), Aristocrat Leisure (ASX:ALL) and The Lottery Corp (ASX:TLC) were all on the gain train, up 0.96%, 1.41% and 1.33% respectively.

Leading the sector laggards was Energy, down 0.50% and Materials, down 0.97%.

BHP (ASX:BHP), Fortescue (ASX:FMG) and Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) slumped 0.79%, 0.52% and 0.77% respectively.
 

NOT THE ASX

The latest meeting minutes of the European Central Bank (ECB) showed policymakers feared that inflation may be getting entrenched, justifying more rate hikes, but Reuters noted “for how long and how much remained a debate.” 

European sharemarkets closed higher on Thursday hitting fresh three-month highs, the continent-wide FTSEurofirst 300 index lifted by 0.3% yesterday but the UK FTSE 100 was unchanged. 

Global oil prices were little-changed, Reuters reported that “European Union governments remained split over what level to cap Russian oil prices at to curb Moscow’s ability to pay for its war in Ukraine without causing a global oil supply shock, with more talks possible on Friday if positions converge.” 

Weighing on prices was news that China had posted the highest number of Covid-19 cases in nearly three years, leading to a tightening of controls. 

The Brent crude oil price fell by US29 cents or 0.3% to US$85.12 a barrel. And the US Nymex crude oil price rose US2 cents to US$77.96 a barrel in after-hours trade. 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for November 25 [intraday]:

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

In the lead today was fraud prevention software player Adveritas (ASX:AV1) which received a conditional non-binding indicative proposal from NASDAQ listed Integral Ad Science, a global leader in digital ad verification, to acquire AV1 for $0.11 cash per share.

They were slim on the details but the board intends to consider the indicative proposal and will proceed to a definitive agreement if it believes a transaction should be put to shareholders for approval. 

And E2 Metals (ASX:E2M) has picked up the advanced Pingüino silver gold project in Argentina from Austral Gold for US$2.5m.

The project is one of the largest undeveloped silver gold resources in Santa Cruz, strategically located 15km north of the compan’s flagship Conserrat project. 

“The consolidation of Pingüino and Conserrat creates a single company with the largest undeveloped silver resource in Santa Cruz, new and evolving high-grade discoveries with a commanding landholding by a junior in the prolific Cerro Vanguardia district,” MD Todd Williams said.

“Shortly after closing the transaction, E2 intends to publish an updated mineral resource estimate for Pingüino in accordance with JORC and define plans for resource expansion and vein discoveries.” 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS