• At times it looked good but the benchmark finishes the week flat 
  • Once struggling Healthcare sector leads – up 5% 
  • TechGen Metals soars on positive gold, lithium updates

It’s been a topsy-turvy week on the Australian bourse, starting higher, finishing down with a mixture of higher and lower days in between. The result? The benchmark S&P ASX 200 has finished flattish, just 0.2% up.

On Tuesday the Melbourne Cup was run and won by Without A Fight and the RBA resumed its tightening cycle, lifting the cash rate to 4.35%.

Odds were in favour of a hike after the central bank held rates steady for four consecutive months. It was the 13th rate hike since May last year, taking the cash rate to its highest level in more than a decade.

Then on Wednesday more than 10 million Optus customers woke into the dark ages – lost and bewildered – with a nationwide outage.

Lasting nearly 14 hours until full services were restored Optus says the longest and largest outage in recent times was caused by a “technical network fault”, but is yet to specify details.

The outage impacted businesses, hospitals, medical, education, transport and government services with many people used to constant internet and phone connection seen daydreaming out the window on a train or bus.

There were even grumpy cats and dogs fed late because the wifi-connected pet feeder didn’t work. If we’ve learned anything from the Optus fiasco perhaps it’s we’ve become to reliant on electronics.

Go back to basics, relish some daydreaming time, ditch the wifi-connected pet feeder and just yell at the kids to go feed the damn dog!

On Friday markets got spooked again after a hawkish US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell told the Monetary Fund conference in Washington DC “if it becomes appropriate to tighten policy further, we will not hesitate to do so”.

 

Healthcare out in front for week

Source: Market Index

 

The struggling healthcare found its mojo to lead the winners this week, much to the delight of Morgan’s healthcare analyst Scott Power, who has been hoping for a strong end to 2023.

Industrials and real estate were also leading the green, while energy and materials led the laggards.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks from November 6-10:

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TechGen Metals (ASX:TG1) soared as much as 357% this week (ending +182%) after announcing stage-three drilling had been approved for its John Bull gold project in Glen Innes in NSW.

In a further positive for TG1, pegmatite mapping will start at Ida Valley in WA, with historic data identifying lithium and caesium in soils up to 144.5ppm Li (311ppm Li2O) along the Ida Fault.

Clinical stage immuno-oncology small cap and Morgan’s analyst Iain Wilkie’s stock of the week Imugene (ASX:IMU) is up 144% in the past five days after releasing two good announcements.

On Monday IMU provided a positive clinical trial update of its Phase 1 MAST (Metastatic Advanced Solid Tumours) trial evaluating its novel cancer-killing virus, CF33-hNIS (VAXINIA).

Today IMU also announced dosing of the first patient in its Phase 1b clinical trial using Azer-cel(an allogeneic off-the-shelf CD19 CAR T, a type of cell therapy).

Adelaide-based small-capped explorer of gold, PGEs, nickel, copper, cobalt and lithium too Woomera Mining (ASX:WML) is up after announcing it had raised $2.1 million after issuing a total of 237,500,004 ordinary shares at $0.009/share to professional and sophisticated investors.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks from November 6-10:

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Who won the days?

Monday – Whispir (ASX:WSP) rose 61% after former Appen (ASX:APX) boss Mark Brayan-run Soprano Design lobbed an off-market takeover play for all shares in the tech company for 48/cents or ~$64 million.

Tuesday – Clinical-stage immuno-oncology upstart Imugene (ASX:IMU) rose 25% after releasing a promising clinical trial update of its Phase 1 MAST (Metastatic Advanced Solid Tumours) trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of novel cancer-killing virus CF33-hNIS (VAXINIA).

Wednesday – Magnetite miner Cyclone Metals (ASX:CLE) finished up 100% on no real news. Last week it announced it had appointed metallurgist Paul Vermeulen as general manager of technology and steel markets.

Thursday – Krakatoa Resources (ASX:KTA) was up 65% after completing drilling at its King Tamba project in WA’s Mid West region, which has been expanded after the intersection of a thick pegmatite with a width of up to 39m under the target area.

Friday – Rubix Resources (ASX:RB6) gained after announcing a cultural heritage survey will start on November 30 at its Lake Johnston lithium project in WA with a program of works for its maiden drilling program approved.

 

IPOs this week

Great Dirt Resources (ASX:GR8) listed today after raising $5 million at 20 cents. The battery-grade manganese explorer saw its shares rise 7.5% to 21.5 finishing the day with a market cap of $6,049,833.

GR8 is focused on exploration of battery-grade manganese in the Barraba region of New South Wales, with historical records showing mineral production in the area dating back to 1941.

Tempest Minerals (TEM)-backed Tolu Minerals (ASX:TOK) also listed today after raising $15 million at 50 cents. Tolu says it’s strategically positioned to participate in the renaissance of the PNG mining sector and saw its shares rise 10% to 55 cents finishing the day with a market cap of $32,318,464.

TEM invested $1 million in seed funding at an issue price of 37 cents to assist in its acquisition of the flagship Tolukuma gold mine.

According to the ASX website there are no scheduled IPO listings for next week.

 

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Krakatoa Resources and Rubix Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

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