• The ASX 200 benchmark slots home +0.92% as the week crawls to a close
  • Banks and other Financials end the week way out in front on +3.4pc
  • Superstar performer (on last week’s news) was One Click Group, up 166%

 

After a full week of trade on the ASX, the landscape is looking a little bit weathered and worn – and I’d even go so far as to say that, if this week at work was a holiday, I don’t think any of you would be a getting a postcard about it any time soon.

Overall, the benchmark’s shaping into a 0.9% gain since this time last Friday – which I’ll admit is actually quite a bit higher than I was expecting to see.

It was banks and other financials that stole the show – the XBK ASX 200 Banks Index was way, waaay out in front of the broader market, locking a 3.7% bump into its Super Saver account for the week, leaving its nearest competitor – the XTX ASX All Tech Index – in the dust on +1.0%.

That figure for the techies should have been heaps higher, except today was the day that Big Tech dropped a Big Turd in the ASX bed linen, throwing a full -2.0% dip into the mix after Wall Street took a hockey stick to the nards of the US tech sector overnight.

More broadly speaking, the week’s loser was the ASX Materials sector, which closed out the past five days down 0.92%.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for the week 26 – 30 June, 2023:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

On the Small Caps Scoreboard for the week since Monday morning, the week’s best performer was One Click Group (ASX:1CG), up more than 166% for the week on last week’s news its One Click Life platform has continued its rapid business growth, surpassing 90,000 registered users.

1CG isn’t kidding when it comes to “rapid growth”, either – that userbase grew 12% in the previous week alone, and the company is seeing vastly improved revenue growth on the back of the surge in popularity.

Again, the figures are clearly excellent – between 1 and 12 July this year, the company brought in more than $1 million in revenue, which represents a better-than 300% climb on the prior comparative period.

In second place, Perpetual Resources (ASX:PEC) has brought home a 133% gain, after racing to a pre-announcement lead on Wednesday and backing that up with today’s lithium tenement news, described in more detail below.

And rounding out the week’s Top Three, it’s our market leader from Tuesday, Indiana Resources (ASX:IDA) – and, again, the details on why that stock performed so well this week appear in the day-by-day breakdown of the week that appears below.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks for the week 26 – 30 June, 2023:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

 

HOW THE WEEK PLAYED OUT

Monday, July 17 – ASX 200 Flat

Monday came and went, as Mondays tend to do, leaving barely a ripple on the ASX millpond after the benchmark closed out the day close enough to zero that it really doesn’t matter.

The day’s winners included Mantle Minerals (ASX:MTL): +50% on news that the Aussie gold, nickel ‘n’ lithium explorer “is prepping a 15km, 250 hole aircore drilling campaign immediately north of De Grey’s (ASX:DEG) renowned Hemi gold deposit in the Pilbara.

Metal Bank (ASX:MBK) +33% on a pending announcement for an agreement for further exploration, Lodestar Minerals (ASX:LSR) +25% on encouraging, “significant” and multiple gold hits at its Maiden Earaheedy drill program in WA.

And Droneshield (ASX:DRO) +17% after awarded a $33m US government contract, which in turn followed a $9.9m order announced earlier this month from another customer among the Five Eyes community.

 

Tuesday, July 18 – ASX 200 Down 0.2%

Tuesday saw the markets dragged lower by a faltering from Real Estate, Telcos and a bunch of other stuff I’m too lazy to type – but the main reason investors were actin’ all uppity was because the RBA’s meeting minutes from the start of the month revealed that the central bank came perilously close to hitting us with another interest rate rise.

The only thing stopping it was fears of an unemployment spike later in the year – but if not for that, the rest of the outlook (further tightening, more rate rises, blah blah blah) would almost certainly have been enough of a prod to have rates on the rise once more.

Indiana Resources (ASX:IDA): +76% on news that the exploration minnow “could be ~US$70m richer after the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, part of the World Bank, ordered Tanzania to pay US$109.5m ($160m) for the unlawful expropriation of the Ntaka Hill nickel project (IDA ~62% ownership) in 2018.

“Once considered investment-friendly, the east African nation of Tanzania stunned ASX resource plays in July 2017 with sweeping changes to its Mining Act,” – which effectively let the government walk in and steal the entire project with amost zero available recourse for Indiana at the time.

Hubify (ASX:HFY): +58% after the ICT and cybersec player issued a very positive trading update.

Hubify says the company is set to deliver consolidated FY23 revenue (unaudited) of $25.72m, an 8% increase YoY, with an underlying EBITDA of $4.42m (unaudited), up $3.42m on the prior year and after removing restructuring and acquisition costs ($0.96m).

That leaves Hubify with a well-strengthened balance sheet, boasting closing cash of $5.61m with no bank debt.

 

Wednesday, July 19 – ASX 200 Up 0.55%

“It wasn’t truly awesome, but it sure didn’t suck” is probably the best way to describe the market’s showing on Hump Day this week, thanks to an Energy sector surge (in the large end of ASX town, anyway) that saw market-mover Woodside Energy Group (ASX:WDS) thrash out a 1.27% gain based on a positive Q2 report.

Carnegie Clean Energy (ASX:CCE): +50% on no fresh news specifically, so most likely just coasting on catching a nice breaker with the rolling Energy sector waves today.

Perpetual Resources (ASX:PEC): +36% ahead of an announcement from the company regarding a potential acquisition, but the company had been putting in some solid ‘chipping away’ at its flagship 137Mt Beharra silica sands project, 300km north of Perth.

 

Thursday, July 20 – ASX 200 Flat. Again.

Employment stats had the markets mandarins juggled for most of the day, despite coming in better than expected for June 2023.

According to the stellar team of Digit Manipulators at the ABS, the unemployment rate fell to 3.5% in June – but stronger-than-anticipated employment growth and falling unemployment figures do tend to give the RBA yet another excuse to keep grinding its inflation-curbing, rate-hiking axe.

If you – like me – zoned out halfway through that tangle of bureau-speak, it means rates are looking hotter again for a rise or two between now and Christmas.

Nuix (ASX:NXL): +33% after the company reported that its Annualised Contract Value (ACV) for FY23 will be between $184-$186 million, up 15% on pcp, with its bottom line statutory EBITDA will be between $32-$35 million, up 164-189% on pcp.

Nuix tipped earnings at between $44m and $47m, up on the $29.2m reported in the 2022 financial year. This doesn’t include costs from the firm’s legal tussles, though – or the acquisition of Topos Labs, so statutory earnings are anticipated to land between $32m and $35m leaving Nuix to end the financial year with cash on hand of $29.6m and no debt.

And Nyrada (ASX:NYR): +37% after the firm, which specialises in developing drugs to combat cardiovascular and neurological diseases, has announced a review of its operating costs and financial plans.

Reportedly, as part of the review, the Nyrada Board of Directors has voluntarily agreed to halve their director fees effective today and until further notice. This will apparently reduce the company’s annualised operating outflows by approximately $0.3 million.

 

Friday, July 21 – ASX 200 Down 0.15%

The main takeaway from the market today is that Aussie investors have collectively decided that tech stocks belong in the bin, which is why despite “reasonable” performances across most sectors, InfoTech is down below -3.0% for the day, dragging the overall market significantly lower as a result.

There was also a profound tumble up the tubby end of the Materials sector, which really didn’t help matters much at all, either.

Perpetual Resources (ASX:PEC): +40% after the company dropped the announcement that had everyone guessing earlier in the week, revealing The WA silica sand specialist has reportedly jumped on the lithium bandwagon.

PEC has snared a highly prospective exploration tenement package in the mining friendly state of Minas Gerais in Brazil, nestled  within the highly prolific ‘Eastern Brazilian Pegmatite District’, which is renowned as one of the world’s largest regions for hard-rock lithium spodumene deposits.

Mosiac Brands (ASX:MOZ): +19% on news that the company expects a $17m profit for FY23 – a $33m turnaround to the prior financial year loss of $16m – after millions of Australians wised up to the fact that it was only the stubborn understains that have been holding their undies together for the past six or seven months.

“Whilst the Group remains cautious for FY24, it enters the new financial year with its cost base in the strongest position in over four years, as Covid related costs fall,” Mosaic said.

 

IPO listings this week

There were none that I can recall this week – but, in a fairly significant change of pace, we’re expecting 5 (possibly four, maybe 6… it’s anyone’s guess, really) ahead in August.

Which means you’ll just have to be patient, and be on your best behaviour, or IPO Santa will skip our house completely again and give away allll of your IPOs to a bunch of sweaty orphans somewhere.

 

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