Category 4 Hurricane Ida has stopped the flow of the Mississippi river and actually reversed it.

“I remember, off hand, that there was some flow reversal of the Mississippi River during Hurricane Katrina, but it is extremely uncommon,” USGS Lower Mississippi Gulf Water Science Centre supervising hydrologist Scott Perrien said.

The hurricane arrived on the 16th anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina, and apparently caused the river level to rise due more than 2 metres due to a storm surge pushing up the river.

“During that time, the flow of the river slowed from about 2 feet per second down to about half a foot per second in the other direction,” Perrien said.

 

To Markets …

The ASX 200 was up 25.20 points or 0.34% at midday today to 7,529.70.

The energy sector was among those that lost ground as concerns about the Delta variant of Covid-19 continue.

Global oil prices rose by around 1.0% on Monday as offshore explorers assessed damage from Hurricane Ida, and investors also focused on an OPEC+ meeting that could see more supply added to the crude market.

Iron ore fell by 0.8% to US$157.75 a tonne as China’s Baoshan Iron & Steel Company delivered a cautious outlook on price prospects.

Among large caps, Woodside (ASX:WPL) and Santos (ASX:STO) were among the worst performing majors today, down 1.65% and 1.15% respectively.

Slipping slightly was BHP (ASX:BHP) droped 0.63% and Fortescue (ASX:FMG) fell 0.89%, along with Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) down 0.19%.
“On the one hand, the Fed said that it will taper but it will not raise interest rates, which is good for the growth stocks,” BCA Research chief US equity strategist Irene Tunkel told Morningstar.

“On the other hand, people are really worried about Delta.”

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for August 31 [intraday]:

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

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The biggest small cap winner today was a three-way tie between Amani Gold (ASX:ANL) and Classic Minerals (ASX:CLZ) both up 50% on news.

Followed by Volt Power Group (ASX:VPR) also rose 50% off the back of a 382% increase in revenue for the half year to $1.17 million and total revenues of $2.57 million (including $1.3 million of legal settlement proceeds).

This was partially due to record Wescone crusher sales and revenues of the new Wescone W300 Series 4 & 3 crushers.

“The imminent 5-Year deployment of a completed fleet of 25x EcoQuip MSLTs to Barrow Island and ongoing positive sales performance by our Wescone business will deliver new additional revenue growth to the Volt group for the remainder,” CEO and managing director Adam Boyd said.

The company sees a growth opportunity for its zero emission, baseload ATEN Waste Heat to Power technology in Australian markets with momentum building in Australian industry to achieve material carbon intensity reduction.

And then there was Rewardle Holdings (ASX:RHX) up 33% on no news.

Valor Resources (ASX:VAL) followed with a 31% jump after announcing high-grade uranium, rare earth, silver and lead results from its Hook Lake project.

“Not only have we confirmed the significant outcrop of uranium mineralisation grading up to 59% U3O8, but we have also seen outstanding results in other commodities such as Rare Earths with grades more than 5% TREO,” executive chairman George Bauk said.

“We have seen results of over 1% TREO at both the Hook Lake prospect and the Nob Hill prospect which are over 10km apart on the property.”

“The Hook Lake Prospect results also included a number of other significant results on top of the Uranium and Rare Earth assays, such as Lead as high as 14.5% and Silver over 500 g/t. There is a lot going on at the Hook Lake prospect.”

“To the northwest of Hook Lake at the West Way prospect, U3O8 values of up to 0.64% along with other samples in the area containing significant values of Molybdenum including 3.4% and 1.9%.”

“This is one hell of an exciting project, right commodity, right location and right time,” he said.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

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The biggest loser today was tied between Metals Australia (ASX:MLS) and Wooboard Technologies (ASX:WOO) both down 25% on no news.