There’s no shortage of investors on the hunt to find another Xero (ASX:XRO), Afterpay (ASX:APT) or Bitcoin, but it’s proving tricky.

And even investors already in these type of assets are having tough times – a jump in net profit from $3.3 million to $19.8 million couldn’t save Xero (ASX:XRO) from a fall over 10 per cent.

As for crypto, it seems many are at the mercy of Elon Musk. Bitcoin plunged over 7 per cent overnight after Tesla suspended the use of BTC to purchase vehicles, having only allowed it two months earlier.

And while his endorsement of Dogecoin in February was a good thing, he’s been silent on it except when he made a joke on Saturday Night Live over the weekend about it being a scam. That saw it fall over 28 per cent in a matter of hours.

If you’d thought it was travel and tourism that could make you rich – especially with airlines reporting domestic flights were doing even better than pre-COVID – it hasn’t been a good week for you so far. Sadly, revelations on Tuesday that international travel could continue to be non-existent until mid 2022 has been bad for stocks like Qantas (ASX:QAN), which has shed 20 per cent in a month. And Regional Express (ASX:REX) has lost 25 per cent since it launched domestic jet services.

It is a negative day for markets, with the ASX 200 sitting 0.37 per cent down as at 11.45am, marking the third straight day of losses. But there were a few winners today.

 

WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks to 11:30am on Wednesday, May 12

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

Kiwi fintech lender Harmoney (ASX:HMY) rose after reporting 800 per cent growth in loan originations over the past 12 months.

The company credited that to the latest generation of its behavioural credit decisioning and pricing engine – Libra – which was only released in February and only in Australia.

WA explorer Lefroy (ASX:LEX) gained after further exploration success at its Burns prospect. Recent drilling has confirmed the porphyry zone continues at least 55 metres down and the porphyry is over 100m in true width. The company also says the latest results provide extensive information to guide further drilling.

Remember that hand sanitiser play Holista CollTech (ASX:HCT)? Well, prior to COVID it was in the healthy foods play and this morning it had an update. It told shareholders it had appointed an exclusive distributor for its collagen product in China subject to regulatory approval.

 

LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks to 11:30am on Wednesday, May 12

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

Mining services stock Perenti (ASX:PRN) fell after an operational update. Despite winning over $700 million in contracts in 2021, it warned it was seeing impacts from COVID-19 and headwinds would continue for the next 12-18 months.

Other impacts included a tightening of the labour market, impacting business margins, and the strengthening of the Aussie dollar negatively impacting foreign operations’ financial performance.

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