ASX Small Cap Lunch Wrap: Who’s headed into early retirement today?

Drug sniffing dogs could be out of a job soon, as more and more US states legalise cannabis legislation.

“With the legalisation of recreational marijuana, K9 Aries is unable to continue his function as a narcotics detection dog,” New Mexico’s Tucumcari Police Department said.

Apparently, the dog can indicate a drug is present but can’t tell you which one – so the handlers can’t determine if the dog found meth, heroin or a legal amount of marijuana.

The New Mexico State Police is also planning to retire all nine of its marijuana detection dogs in a move that could cost US$194,000.

To Markets …

European and US markets rose on Wednesday.

Oil fell, but copper (+1.5%) posted its third gain in four trading sessions “as falling inventories in China signalled buoyant demand”, according to CommSec.

Also up was the gold futures price —  +US$7.90  to U$1,802.10 an ounce — and iron ore to US$222.85 a tonne “on a brightening global demand outlook”.

The benchmark ASX 200 index had gained 0.3% to 7,351 points by 12pm eastern time.

WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks in morning trade for Thursday, July 8:

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

Nex Metals (ASX:NME) rose a whopping 72% after reporting bonanza gold intersections up to 91.2 g/t at its McTavish JV gold project with Metalicity Ltd (ASX:MCT) – who were also up 18%.

Tempest Minerals (ASX:TEM) was up 37% after news it had indemnified iron rich formations Euro Project in the Yalgoo Region of Western Australia.

Up 35% was Clean Teq Water (ASX:CLQ) was up on no news, and FOS Capital Ltd (ASX:FOS) was up 28% after reporting sales increased 47% in FY21 to $8.1 million.

Cirralto Ltd (ASX:CRO) jumped 18% on signing a five-year referral agreement with Fresh Supply Co for finance services, and PVW Resources (ASX:PVW) rose 11%, announcing plans to expand its portfolio in the West Yilgarn nickel-copper-PGE province.

LOSERS

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Fertoz Ltd (ASX:FTZ) was down 20% on the news it plans to raise $5 million to accelerate the development of its Fertoz Carbon division, although the stock is still up by around 300% since early June.

And Rimfire Pacific (ASX:RIM) dropped 10% after announcing an intercept of 86m at 0.63 g/t gold at its Fifield project.