The broader ASX 200 is down on Monday but oil and gold stocks have ripped higher, as the ongoing fallout from the Russia-Ukraine crisis continues to shake global markets.

For a quick break from reality, the latest edition of Batman has just swooped into cinemas.

Alas, things got a little too real in one Texas movie theatre, where the show was stopped because an actual bat was flying around in the theatre.

Like his human namesake, Batbat proved ingeniously stubborn, as attendants tried to catch and release the Dark Knight, but to no avail.

The Austin-based cinema then issued refunds to attendants and blamed the drama on a prank gone wrong.

Back to the real world, where Monday trade in Asia is a clear example of how Russia’s invasion and the historic financial sanctions enacted against it are causing major dislocations in global markets.

Oil prices surged to more than US$130/barrel this morning, after already running hot in the US session on Friday night.

Investors have responded with a flood of money into ASX oil & gas stocks, where oil major Woodside (ASX:WPL) is leading the way with a gain of almost 7%.

Elsewhere, gold is taking a serious run at US$2,000/oz as investors flock to the global safe haven.

In response, large cap ASX goldies are also outperforming with Northern Star (ASX:NST) up by more than 5%.

Those gains offset steady falls against healthcare, tech companies and banking stocks as the ASX 200 continued its slide into midday trade.

As a commodity-linked currency, the Aussie dollar is reflecting the unprecedented surge in commodity prices and energy inputs with another push higher towards US74c this morning.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for March 7 [intraday]:

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A number of resources stocks held their gains from the opening bell, as ASX money continues to tip into commodities and more or less out of everything else.

Investors were pumped about Stanmore Resources (ASX:SMR), which managed to sell its full quota of shares in connection with the US$1.2bn acquisition of BHP’s Queensland coal prices.

First announced in November, the deal marked a home-run swing for Stanmore which at the time only had a market cap of around $280m.

At today’s price for SMR shares above $1.70, institutional investors are sitting on a tidy paper-profit for the ~$656 million they ponied up to fund the equity component of the deal, at $1.10.

The other stock at the top of the leaderboard was Structural Monitoring Systems (ASX:SMN), which was only reinstated to the ASX on February 25 pursuant to a Federal court order “in relation to potential prior trading of certain CDIs while those CDIs remained subject to secondary trading restrictions under the Corporations Act”.

This morning, SMN ripped higher on some key regulatory news, after the US Federal Aviation Administration granted approval for the use of its sensor technology “on the B737-800 Intelsat (Gogo) Wi-Fi antenna support structure inspection”.

“This approval marks an extraordinary milestone in aviation history, the first-ever in the world regulatory agency approved sensor technology validated and certified for detecting critical structural cracks on aircraft,” SMN said.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks for March 7 [intraday]:

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