It’s Monday morning, and for once the ASX has managed to ignore what happened last session on Wall Street, climbing to a 1.2% lift by lunchtime today – with Demetallia (ASX:DRM) taking off thanks to a takeover bid.

But the benchmark’s movement isn’t the only thing that looks a tad topsy-turvy this morning, after a string of short news items out of the US have some people (mainly me, I’ll admit) wondering if whoever’s writing the script for this season of Humanity has outsourced the whole thing to some shonky AI being held captive in a basement somewhere.

For starters, there’s this news out of Alabama, where the T.R. Miller High School has decided that bake sales are waaaay too 1990s for raising money for the athletic department.

Instead, the school is raffling off a bunch of firearms – a bold decision in the face of the near-endless stream of school shootings from the gun-crazy US of A.

Organisers say that, despite the impossibly bad optics of it all, everything’s fine – as these particular guns are the ones people would use for hunting, and not the kind you’d want to be bringing to school because they’re a bit daggy. Or something.

Second cab off the “honestly, America… WTF is happening over there?” list is the fact that famously not-Christian-Friendly rapper Eminem has made his official debut on the Billboard Christian Top 100, after a gospel track he performed on with DJ Khaled debuted at Number 1 on the chart.

The song “Use This Gospel” is a far cry from the rapper’s usual expletive-laden fare, and an even further departure from his lengthy ode to the glory of drugs with D12’s Purple Pills.

Those two events had us wondering if we’d woken up this morning in Bizarro World, where everything’s opposite and nothing makes sense – but all it took was this one news story to set things straight.

The fact that an armed Pennsylvania man in a rainbow wig, who was attempting to ‘restore Trump as President’ had been arrested by police at a Dairy Queen outlet was all the reassurance we needed that everything in the US is working just as nature intended.

God Bless America.

 

TO MARKETS

Australia markets got off to an itty-bitty-little happy-smile start to the day, enjoying a +0.2% jump in an apparent act of defiance against Wall Street’s weak close on Friday afternoon, which had indicators pointing to a dip at local open.

However, it’s all a bit chaotic for the benchmark, which has been lurching about like a Monday morning drunk, dipping briefly into the red around 11:45am but bouncing back to a +1.2% lift as the morning’s fifth coffee kicked in.

As we head for the lunch break, it’s a proper mixed bag across the sectors today. Wringing the market’s neck for every scrap of hard-earned value are Materials (+1.04%) and Real Estate (+0.89%).

And while InfoTech (-0.85%) and Health Care (-0.73%) were dropping their pants, turning their heads and coughing, most other sectors were hovering around break-even for the morning’s session.

Jumping this morning was Lake Resources (ASX:LKE), which has fired up a near +20% hike after the arrival of its long-awaited demo plant onsite at its Kachi Lithium Project in Argentina.

Life360 (ASX:360) has seen its fortunes perform a solid 180, climbing about +15.0% today and Polynovo (ASX:PNV)has had a +15.0% shot in the arm this morning, announcing US FDA clearance of its NovoSorb® MTX (“MTX”), a major new product innovation for soft tissue regeneration for the management of complex wounds.

 

NOT THE ASX

Wall Street’s lumpy week continued until the close of business on Friday their time, with all three indices ending in the red. The Dow dipped -0.45%, the S&P fell -0.72% and the tech heavy Nasdaq was down -0.90%

Things are still looking dicey in the US, as Eddy reports this morning.

The FedEx share price plunged the most in 40 years after dropping 21% on dismal Q1 results, and the company has temporarily grounded some of its cargo aircrafts as its CEO Raj Subramaniam said he expected the economy to enter a ‘worldwide recession’.

This week, the market’s attention will squarely be on the Fed’s monetary policy decision, which will be revealed at 4am on Thursday AEST. Most analysts still predict a 75bp increase, but some pundits are also calling 100bp – and the anticipation is both delicious, and killing us.

In Asia, it’s all a bit shaky as well – thanks partially to a major earthquake in Taiwan that derailed a train and brought a few buildings down.

Japan’s Nikkei appears to have borne the brunt of the morning’s sell-off, falling around -1.3% so far with Hong Kong down a far more reasonable -0.35%. Shanghai, however, seems quite stable, the needle barely moving as it crept towards a -0.03% dip.

Over at the commodities desk, oil has bumped up +1.0% this morning while gas went the other way, down -1.78%.

The downward pressure on gold prices has continued, leaving the precious metal -0.15% down this morning, but silver (+0.51%) and copper (+0.27%) are faring a little better.

And in the Eternal Winter of Crypto, where good news is bad and bad news is the new normal, the Great Ethereum Merge has basically gone full Fyre Festival, after the much-vaunted game changer has seen ETH investors rioting over crap food and nowhere to sleep.

Rob “I’m just here for the Forking” Badman has all the details over at Mooners & Shakers.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for September 19 [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
ANL Amani Gold Ltd 0.0015 50% 2,559,208 $23,693,441
DRM Demetallica 0.275 38% 2,727,397 $17,369,724
ICR Intelicare Holdings 0.042 35% 1,101,691 $3,734,456
MX1 Micro-X Limited 0.17 26% 1,609,518 $62,303,174
PTR Petratherm Ltd 0.086 25% 1,907,085 $15,507,829
ATU Atrum Coal Ltd 0.009 20% 356,166 $5,185,055
BCK Brockman Mining Ltd 0.03 20% 54,955 $232,005,803
OLY Olympio Metals Ltd 0.18 20% 133,800 $5,710,728
AMD Arrow Minerals 0.006 20% 18,121,518 $10,168,825
KGD Kula Gold Limited 0.024 20% 3,348,593 $5,379,391
MTH Mithril Resources 0.006 20% 84,000 $14,701,165
HIQ Hitiq Limited 0.065 18% 250,009 $6,223,590
HPC Thehydration 0.13 18% 25,846 $15,824,145
SKN Skin Elements Ltd 0.033 18% 451,289 $12,130,363
FXG Felix Gold Limited 0.155 15% 8,540 $11,227,464
LKE Lake Resources 1.065 15% 34,975,822 $1,292,675,549
ADR Adherium Ltd 0.008 14% 200,000 $15,593,869
ADV Ardiden Ltd 0.008 14% 14,551,533 $18,678,347
AMA AMA Group Limited 0.25 14% 1,482,232 $236,075,448
NOR Norwood Systems Ltd. 0.017 13% 476,156 $5,100,717
LDX Lumos Diagnostics 0.06 13% 296,864 $11,125,042
VOL Victory Offices Ltd 0.035 13% 25,000 $4,893,288
MGA Metalsgrove Mining 0.135 13% 80,876 $4,320,060
CRR Critical Resources 0.086 12% 63,851,153 $114,577,173
AL8 Alderan Resource Ltd 0.01 11% 1,301,095 $5,204,395
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In Small Caps, the market’s gone Horns Up for Demetallica (ASX:DRM) this morning, after AIC Mining dropped a juicy off-market takeover that valued Demetallica at around $36 million.

The bid from AIC offers  Demetallica shareholders 1 AIC Mines share for every 1.5 Demetallica shares held – a massive premium of 68% to the 16 September 2022 closing price.

Not surprisingly, DRM’s been trading its backside off this morning, up +37.5% to $0.275 at lunchtime.

Elsewhere, Intelicare Holdings has continued to whipsaw around pretty wildly, backing up from a shocker on Friday to stack on better than +35% on no particular news today.

And Petratherm (ASX:PTR), which caught the laser-guided attention of Barry Fitzgerald on Friday, is off to the races this morning, stacking on close to +25% as it became almost painfully apparent that its sitting on the cusp of turning into a much meatier proposition for investors.

And in last place today, limping into the deep red territory, is Equus Mining. It’s down -20.0% this morning, suggesting that – at least, for today – a horse on the bourse is worth poo in the bush.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for September 19 [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
ARE Argonaut Resources 0.001 -50% 501,000 $7,238,051
WBE Whitebark Energy 0.002 -33% 1,885,000 $16,944,658
EQE Equus Mining Ltd 0.1 -20% 93,100 $23,353,994
PET Phoslock Env Tec Ltd 0.066 -18% 13,716,826 $49,951,241
CT1 Constellation Tech 0.005 -17% 1,000,000 $8,827,202
REC Rechargemetals 0.165 -15% 61,279 $7,760,025
REZ Resourc & En Grp Ltd 0.0205 -15% 1,930,799 $11,995,339
CHL Camplifyholdings 2.07 -13% 40,105 $67,029,151
SI6 SI6 Metals Limited 0.007 -13% 50,000 $11,905,513
M24 Mamba Exploration 0.145 -12% 196,992 $6,958,875
QFE Quickfee Limited 0.07 -11% 21,000 $21,042,576
COI Comet Ridge Limited 0.16 -11% 2,602,753 $179,491,915
FLX Felix Group 0.16 -11% 37,368 $23,901,080
HMX Hammer Metals Ltd 0.049 -11% 246,857 $45,103,259
RDT Red Dirt Metals Ltd 0.66 -11% 1,479,249 $225,370,275
CHR Charger Metals 0.54 -11% 353,653 $19,726,651
SEG Sports Ent Grp Ltd 0.25 -11% 6,480 $73,111,368
1MC Morella Corporation 0.025 -11% 27,570,016 $161,438,082
OZZ OZZ Resources 0.085 -11% 171,400 $3,259,082
CAD Caeneus Minerals 0.0045 -10% 5,112,111 $23,603,025
VAL Valor Resources Ltd 0.009 -10% 5,313,334 $36,585,348
WRK Wrkr Ltd 0.018 -10% 44,414 $24,468,879
PG1 Pearl Global Ltd 0.019 -10% 2,584,289 $21,047,194
HMG Hamelin Gold 0.145 -9% 18,527 $17,600,000
AXI Axiom Properties 0.05 -9% 47,741 $23,799,251
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