How ASX small caps fared in Tuesday's market turmoil

Small caps came under big pressure along with the rest of the market on Tuesday — the ASX200 lost 3.2 per cent after the Dow Jones plunged 4.6 per cent in New York.

The Dow was volatile on Wednesday, moving in and out of positive territory, but mounted a late recovery and was up 2.3 per cent at the close.

Almost 1000 ASX small caps (valued at less than $300 million) were down between 1 per cent and 50 per cent by the end of the day.

Only about 150 small caps made ground, while about 450 went untraded (sparking all those Tweets about “the beauty of owning illiquid micro caps in a sea of red”)

More detail here on the handful of bright sparks in the resources sector, and how our cannabis stocks fared.

Here are the key gainers and losers among ASX small caps at Tuesday’s close:

In the green

LifeHealthcare (ASX:LHC) was by far the best-performing small cap after announcing a takeover bid from Pacific Equity Partners.

The stock was trading up 40 per cent to close at $3.61.

Under the agreement, shareholders will receive $3.75 per share in cash, at 42 per cent premium to its 3-month volume weighted average price to February 2.

Trustees Australia (ASX:TAU) made a late run to finish up 28 per cent at 18c on news.

While yesterday’s loss leader Wollongong Coal (ASX:WLC) made a recovery to close up 27 per cent at 1.4c.

The company told the market it was facing potential suspension due to late fees but bounced back from lows of 0.8c.

Both pet pot stock CannPal (ASX:CP1) and alternate market National Stock Exchange (ASX:NSX) finished the day up 19 per cent on no news.

ASX Code	Name	% CHANGE	Price Thurs 12pm AEDT

LHC	LifeHealthcare	40	$3.61
TAU	Trustees Australia	28	18c
WLC	Wollongong Coal	27	1.4c
CP1	CannPal	19	21.5c
NSX	National Stock Exchange	19	25

CVS	Cervantes Corp	-33	1c
JHL	Jayex Healthcare	-31	1.5c
TTW	TopTung	-29	2.2c
GED	Golden Deeps	-26	4.2c
PNX	PNX Metals	-25	1.2c

In the red

Topaz and tungsten junior TopTung (ASX:TTW) topped the list of the small cap worst performers at midday after releasing results of its resource modelling but settled to close down 29 per cent at 2.2c by close.

“The detailed drilling has confirmed the lack of grade continuity for the tungsten mineralisation which is likely to cause a reduction in the size of the resource estimate,” it told the market.

For the day it was junior gold play Cervantes (ASX:CVX) that took the wooden spoon, down 33 per cent at close to trade at 1c.

Jayex Healthcare (ASX:JHL) closed down 31 per cent to trade at 1.5c while Golden Deeps (ASX:GED) closed down 26 per cent at 4.2c.

Zinc and precious metal explorer PNX Metals (ASX:PNX) finished the day down 25 per cent at 1.2c with the last news in the market an extension from the ASX to settle a loan.