ASX Small Cap Lunch Wrap: Who’s making a killing today?
News
There’s tipping your hat, and then there’s really, really tipping it.
Just ask the self-published romance novelist from Portland, Oregon – the spiritual home of terrible life choices – who wrote an essay titled How to Murder Your Husband.
Bad news for 71-year-old Nancy Brophy is that she’s just been convicted of doing precisely that, after her husband was killed in 2018 – seven years after his missus wrote her article about committing an untraceable murder.
The essay made it pretty clear that the author had given this a lot of thought – even outlining several reasons why she might have to do the grisly deed, with an emphasis on making sure she didn’t end up in the slammer once it was done.
“If the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly don’t want to spend any time in jail,” Brophy wrote.
The lesson here today could not be any more obvious or clear – sometimes it really is best to keep your mouth shut.
But yeah, more about Appen later.
The S&P/ASX 200 index has ticked up ~0.9% this morning, with the seers and sothsayers all pointing to a decently strong end to the week for the index.
The big news of the morning was a real head-scratcher, as whatever was ‘appending’ at Appen led to a bizarre rise and fall.
Yesterday, we told you all about what looked like a great gain for Appen investors, with a takeover offer launching Appen share’s skyward.
Regrettably, Telus International’s enthusiastic offer of $9.50 a share evaporated this morning, and word on the street is that someone forgot that loose lips sink ships – and an extremely unfortunate leak from Appen to the media on Wednesday about the Canadians’ offer was enough to see Telus walking out the door.
Even more unfortunate was the timing, with Appen’s AGM scheduled for today. Shareholders were told that Appen “sought to reach out to Telus through their advisers but have not been able to establish contact” – a brutal (and rather rude) “new phone, who dis” moment piled on top of Appen’s share price diving sharply by ~24%.
Around the region, Asian markets are travelling in the green, with Hong Kong stocks leading the charge thanks to tech giants Alibaba and Baidu exceeding forecasts for first quarter revenues.
The region can – fingers crossed – look to a brighter future after Chinese leaders sat down to let the government’s feelings known about the jelly-like economy. What followed was clearly a wait-and-see response, with investors exercising caution because talk is cheap, but a fix to a slowing economy actually requires doing something.
Stateside, markets had a good day, with the Dow climbing 1.61%, outdone by both the S&P (1.99%) and the Nasdaq (2.68%).
Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for May 26 [intraday]:
Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:
Code Company Price % Market Cap ALT Analytica Limited 0.002 100% $4,613,801 OKU Oklo Resources Ltd 0.143 88% $38,341,732 XTE Xtek Limited 0.445 39% $32,198,478 RAS Ragusa Minerals Ltd 0.185 32% $17,592,096 MKL Mighty Kingdom Ltd 0.085 31% $8,241,417 IVO Invigor Group Ltd 0.044 26% $5,361,995 GAL Galileo Mining Ltd 1.765 25% $237,456,979 WWI West Wits Mining Ltd 0.030 25% $44,117,579 BBX BBX Minerals Ltd 0.140 22% $52,902,470 WML Woomera Mining Ltd 0.024 20% $13,736,661 FFF Forbidden Foods 0.130 18% $8,651,203 EDE Eden Inv Ltd 0.013 18% $25,477,184 GLH Global Health Ltd 0.295 18% $14,162,442 CMP Compumedics Limited 0.200 18% $30,117,701 B4P Beforepay Group 0.645 16% $18,784,801 AUK Aumake Limited 0.008 14% $5,400,128 HHI Health House Int Ltd 0.017 13% $2,036,502 HMX Hammer Metals Ltd 0.060 13% $43,194,715 LLO Lion One Metals Ltd 1.245 13% $11,736,421 REZ Resourc & En Grp Ltd 0.035 13% $15,493,979 FRM Farm Pride Foods 0.180 13% $8,828,828 LME Limeade Inc. 0.315 13% $70,983,088 BPP Babylon Pump & Power 0.009 13% $9,210,220 AGD Austral Gold 0.065 12% $35,514,058 QEM QEM Limited 0.245 11% $26,758,636
Arguably the small cap Win of the Morning trophy is headed to the boardroom at Oklo Resources (ASX:OKU), which soared after news that the board has unanimously agreed to a fantastic takeover offer from Canada’s B2Gold, that values it at $90m, or 17.25c per share.
You can get more details of the deal here, but it looks like a pretty sweet ride, considering Oklo’s shares had been in a steady, seemingly inexorable decline since mid-2020.
Today’s other small cap climbers include a mighty jump for Mighty Kingdom (ASX:MKL) after it announced a partnership deal with Google, while defence specialist Xtek (ASX:XTE) had investors racing for the Buy Button after announcing a $46.8 million purchase order (!) through its HighCom Armour Solutions business, from a very mysterious-sounding “undisclosed international customer”.
Code Company Price % Market Cap FDR Finder 0.115 -38% $13,875,000 JAV Javelin Minerals Ltd 0.001 -33% $14,031,229 CCE Carnegie Cln Energy 0.002 -25% $30,205,147 MEB Medibio Limited 0.003 -25% $9,587,960 APX Appen Limited 6.500 -21% $1,020,385,647 VPR Volt Power Group 0.002 -20% $23,361,334 DEX Duke Exploration 0.110 -15% $11,727,450 SCLDB Schrole Group Ltd 0.300 -14% $12,175,893 ROG Red Sky Energy. 0.006 -14% $37,115,590 BUR Burleyminerals 0.100 -13% $3,947,151 SIH Sihayo Gold Limited 0.004 -13% $14,741,846 TPD Talon Energy Ltd 0.007 -13% $67,180,316 MPG Manypeaksgoldlimited 0.350 -13% $12,840,800 R3D R3D Resources Ltd 0.115 -12% $12,295,739 KGD Kula Gold Limited 0.031 -11% $7,531,147 CR1 Constellation Res 0.200 -11% $11,228,721 PCL Pancontinental Energ 0.008 -11% $64,388,005 SI6 SI6 Metals Limited 0.008 -11% $12,853,296 ABE Ausbondexchange 0.310 -11% $12,119,473 AUR Auris Minerals Ltd 0.025 -11% $13,345,527 BMM Balkanminingandmin 0.270 -10% $9,825,000 ERL Empire Resources 0.009 -10% $10,385,721 TNY Tinybeans Group Ltd 0.280 -10% $18,923,794 GES Genesis Resources 0.010 -9% $8,611,254 COO Corum Group Limited 0.041 -9% $26,854,056