ASX Small Cap Lunch Wrap: Who’s mixing with the wrong crowd today?

Police in Tasmania have put a request out to neighbourhood crime stoppers, in order to ascertain the identity of an alleged liquor thief.

The request included photographs of said (alleged) thief, who (allegedly) pocketed a bottle of 12-year old Yamazaki whiskey along with what looks like four litres of… Coke?

While we know stealing is a crime, one punter on Facebook Meta was more concerned with the more obvious indiscretion:

Combining quality Japanese single malt with carbonised sugar water is considered blasphemous in some circles (and those circles include half the Stockhead editorial team).

Mitchell Abel — we see you.

On markets, a barnstorming two-day rally on the Nasdaq has rolled into another quality session for ASX tech stocks, which had a torrid month in January.

The ASX-traded shares of Afterpay’s new owner Block Inc (ASX:SQ2) ripped higher for a second straight day, while all the major indexes were higher.

Reflecting the improved risk appetite, the microcap Emerging Companies index again outperformed the big end of town with a +1.5% rally in morning trade, compared to ~0.3% for the ASX 200.

On currency markets, the Australian dollar is trading slightly above US70c ahead of the marquee events on markets this afternoon — the RBA’s monthly policy meeting.

The key point in the meeting will be whether the RBA indicates it will shift its timeline for the next rate hike to 2022 — ahead of its previous forecasts.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for February 1 [intraday]:

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

Among stocks with news, winners were fairly light-on this morning although energy equipment company Volt Power (ASX:VPR) rose strongly following its quarterly trading update.

The company, which has a December 31 financial year, said it booked record annual ordinary revenue of $3.2m and recorded net operating cash inflows of more than $800,000, on receipts of +$1.2m.

Also finding demand was BNPL player Payright (ASX:PYR), following a trading udpate where it flagged Record Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of $34.4m (up 25% from the previous quarter) and unaudited fee income of $3.9m.

While bouncing off its recent lows to 21c, PYR hasn’t escaped the broader BNPL selloff which has seen the stock decline from its February 2021 highs above $1.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks for February 1 [intraday]:

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