ASX Small Cap Lunch Wrap: Who’s taking evasive action today?

On a day where we were supposed to be watching Australian batsmen knock up huge figures, NSW stepped in with about 50 centuries.

More than 5000 people in NSW have been reported as contracting Covid since yesterday, bringing the overall total for the state to 11,201 at 10am today.

Victoria came in with second top score of 3767.

Between the two (roughly 30,000 active cases) there were eight deaths and 123 in ICU.

Everyone’s just throwing the towel in and letting the vaccines do their thing.

NSW Health is considering cutting iso times to five days for people who have Covid but not the symptoms.

With most of the pressure on PCR testing, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has dropped that requirement for travel into her state from January 1, opting for rapid antigen testing instead.

Global COVID-19 cases hit a daily record of more than 1.45 million infections.

We got this.

On markets, where money never sleeps, even for Christmas, the S&P 500 broke a four-day winning streak to threaten its all-time high.

The S&P 500 index finished the day 0.10% lower, the Dow Jones rose by 0.26%, while tech heavy Nasdaq was down 0.56%.

Oil prices are at a one-month high, with Brent crude trading at US$79.03/barrel, while spot iron ore was down 3% to US$119.44 a tonne.

Bitcoin has dropped by almost 6% overnight to US$47,800 at 8am AEDT today, but has held steady since.

The S&P/ASX200 has had a solid return after the long break, and is up 67.60 points or 0.91% to 7,487.90 for the day so far.

It’s now crossing above its 125-day moving average and is currently 1.90% off of its 52-week high.

In space, China’s complaining that Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites have forced its space station to take evasive action twice.

Lol.

Let’s look at the winners and losers as we start the run home for 2021.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for December 23 [intraday]:

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

Carnaby Resources (ASX:CNB) lead the gains today after announcing a “MAJOR COPPER DISCOVERY” — emphasis theirs – at its ‘Nil Desperandum’ in Mt Isa.

The caps are almost justified. CNB has pulled a headline result of 41m at 4.1% copper, including 9m at an eyewatering 10.3% copper.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks for December 23 [intraday]:

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