• Slow start to the day as big retailers faced a sell-off
  • Economic data in from the ABS shows commodity losses hitting us hard
  • Golden Deep hits the big time on 80m-thick copper and zinc in NSW

 

Local markets opened with a sigh and a dip this morning, after eking out the slimmest of wins yesterday as the market prepped for a couple of important economic indicators due to be released today.

The ASX 200 benchmark sank 33 points in the opening minutes, and struggled to make that back across the opening 90 minutes of the session, with the needle on most sectors barely registering any movement.

Except for Consumer Staples, which was taking a relative beating this morning, thanks to a broad sell-off among that sector’s big guns.

The nation’s balance of payments data has dropped, and GDP data is coming tomorrow – and it feels like the market’s just treading water for the moment, waiting for something to happen.

Best we dive right in and wrap this up so I can get some lunch.

 

TO MARKETS

With the benchmark trickling lower this morning, thanks largely to a sell-off in Consumer Staples, there’s a sense of ‘hurry up and wait’ as the market marks time ahead of a couple of sets of economic data today and tomorrow.

At open, the benchmark moved lower and has spent the first couple of hours of the session attempting to claw back an early 33 dip – however, the Consumers Staples sector is doing its best to sink the ship today, shedding an outsize 1.7% early on.

Both of the big food duopoly heavyweights are shedding value this morning, with Woolworths (ASX:WOW) down 3.4% and Coles Group (ASX:COL) falling 2.0% in the first 90 minutes of the day, while Endeavour Group (ASX:EDV) was also down 1.7%.

At midday, the market sectors looked like this:

 

asx winner (GED)
Chart via Marketindex.

 

A look over the ASX indices has the banks performing best, up 0.3% with the goldies not far behind on +0.24% and everything else either flat, or falling.

And speaking of falling, the continuing decline of commodity prices – most notably iron ore – is being blamed for the nation’s balance of payments, which arrived this morning from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

According to the numbers, the current account balance fell by $4.4 billion to a deficit of $10.7 billion in the June quarter, which is the biggest slump since June 2018.

Exports of goods fell 4.4% and the balance on goods and services fell $3.9 billion to $12 billion – with the ABS chief data wonk Tom Lay saying that the figures reflect “continued falls in bulk commodity prices and higher income paid to non-residents”.

Arrival of the data didn’t move the benchmark much in either direction.

 

NOT THE ASX

New York markets were closed yesterday, as the US paused to watch competitive eaters Joey Chestnut and Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi engage in a fierce hot dog eating competition, with Chestnut emerging as the winner after he grossed everyone out by eating 83 hot dogs in 10 minutes.

What a time to be alive.

Elsewhere overnight, European markets were little changed as investors sifted through a bunch of economic data for insights into the European Central Bank’s future policy moves, Eddy Sunarto reported this morning.

The benchmark STOXX 600 index was down a modest 0.02%, near its recent peak following data showing Euro zone inflation at a three-year low.

German DAX saw a slight increase of 0.13%, but despite a record close, uncertainties persisted following populist gains in recent state elections.

London’s FTSE dropped 0.15%, and Paris’s CAC rose 0.2%.

The iron ore price has slumped another 4% to US$96.95 a tonne, but it remains significantly higher than during the last steel crisis of 2015-2016.

Meanwhile, oil prices continued to climb, rebounding another 1% after Libya’s declaration of force majeure at the El-Feel oilfield.

Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) cited “uncontrollable circumstances” affecting Mellitah crude oil production as the reason for halting loading operations.

Libya’s recent move to halt crude exports, combined with a recent complete shutdown of output and exports in the eastern part of the country, have tightened supply in recent days.

In Asia this morning, the results are fairly subdued. The Hang Seng is up 0.15%, and Shanghai markets are down 0.07%.

Japan’s Nikkei is showing a 0.12% gain, but it’s likely that things are going to be disrupted shortly, as the nation deals with the drenching it received from Typhoon Shanshan in recent days.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for 03 September [intraday]:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

 

Golden Deeps (ASX:GED) was moving very quickly on Monday morning, climbing more than 200% after the company announced what looks like a major find at its Havilah Project in the Lachlan Fold Belt Copper-Gold Province of NSW. Portable pXRF readings – which, it should be noted, are broadly indicative only – suggest that the company has drilled into 80m of semi-massive copper and zinc sulphides, with readings of up to 18.5% Cu and 34.8% Zn.

The drill cores have been sent for assaying, and should be back in 3-6 weeks, the company says, while drilling continues to explore the site, testing the Hazelbrook anomaly 200m along strike to the northeast.

AVADA Group (ASX:AVD) was up after the company delivered its audited financials for FY24.

Alderan Resources (ASX:AL8) was up after the company sent a letter to shareholders outline the details of an entitlement offer, in the form of a pro rata non-renounceable entitlement issue of one fully paid ordinary share for every two shares held by eligible shareholders at an issue price of $0.002 a pop, with one free attaching option for every four shares applied for and issued to raise up to $1,272,861.

Energy Resources of Australia (ASX:ERA) was up slightly, coming back on stream after a pause while the company disclosed a potential takeover.

MinRex Resources (ASX:MRR) was up on news that a review and interpretation of geophysical and geological data from its 100% owned Mt Pleasant Project in the Lachlan Fold Belt of NSW has revealed 14 new targets for immediate follow up at the site.

Hartshead Resources (ASX:HHR) was moving on news that significantly improved imaging of subsurface, including Anning and Somerville fields and other discovered fields and exploration opportunities, has confirmed previous work and indicates a small increase in Gas Initially In Place.

Earlier, Noxopharm (ASX:NOX) was also moving well on Tuesday morning, after the company announced substantial progress on its Chroma technology platform, with encouraging brain cancer results plus early work on leukaemia. The company says that two novel drugs developed from the Chroma platform, known as CRO-70 and CRO-71, “significantly reduced the growth of glioblastoma explants by an average of 75.94% and 75.87% respectively versus the untreated controls”.

Further down the list, Knosys (ASX:KNO) was rising gently on news that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Western Australia has awarded a five year contract for the use of Knosys’ market leading knowledge management platform, KnowledgeIQ, with two options of one year each to extend the contract to a total term of seven years.

And PolarX (ASX:PXX) has intersected more copper at its Caribou Dome prospect in Alaska, drilling into 15.5m at 7.4% Cu + 21.4 g/t Ag, including 8.1m at 11.4% Cu and 35.8g/t Ag, with extensional drilling, underneath the previously reported finds of 9.1m at 7.0% Cu + 11.2 g/t Ag and 9.8m at 6.8% Cu + 7.8 g/t Ag from surface.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for 03 September [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
PRM Prominence Energy 0.002 -33% 1,305,901 $7,273,826
IEC Intra Energy Corp 0.009 -18% 31,714 $6,663,597
SHG Singular Health 0.14 -15% 171,455 $10,772,696
LNU Linius Tech Limited 0.006 -14% 3,640,017 $15,759,564
SYN Synergia Energy Ltd 0.003 -14% 5,000,000 $29,462,267
TSC Twenty Seven Co. Ltd 0.003 -14% 1,460,000 $9,312,849
W2V Way2Vatltd 0.04 -13% 211,574 $7,329,447
MCE Matrix C & E Ltd 0.205 -13% 137,629 $34,326,786
TMX Terrain Minerals 0.007 -13% 696,500 $6,086,088
DTR Dateline Resources 0.105 -13% 791,471 $59,487,638
SMN Structural Monitor. 0.405 -12% 15,000 $58,987,167
FLX Felix Group 0.155 -11% 6,637 $23,237,161
AQC Auspaccoal Ltd 0.12 -11% 4,000 $6,815,449
TPG TPG Telecom Limited 5.905 -11% 6,893,792 $12,308,841,849
DOC Doctor Care Anywhere 0.21 -11% 166,359 $53,396,726
ING Inghams Group 2.68 -10% 3,131,547 $1,103,888,415
UCM Uscom Limited 0.056 -10% 257,142 $12,315,425
BIR BIR Financial Ltd 0.031 -9% 115,983 $6,848,830
KNM Kneomedia Limited 0.021 -9% 2,348,729 $30,955,186
ODE Odessa Minerals Ltd 0.016 -9% 268,396 $9,400,144
PVS Pivotal Systems 0.1375 -8% 132,761 $23,919,938
NVU Nanoveu Limited 0.011 -8% 348,335 $2,799,243
LRD Lordresourceslimited 0.1975 -8% 109,414 $6,833,694
NTM Nt Minerals Limited 0.024 -8% 74,662 $16,481,419
GFN Gefen Int 0.12 -8% 40,000 $8,832,217
Wordpress Table Plugin

 

ICYMI – AM EDITION

Legacy Minerals (ASX:LGM) has welcomed the completion of the first diamond drill hole at the Glenlogan project in NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt where S2 Resources (ASX:S2R) is earning up to 80% interest.

Red Star Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of S2 Resources, drilled the hole to a depth of 1,354.7m, which was designed to test a prominent magnetic anomaly interpreted to be a potential copper-gold porphyry target.

Selected samples from throughout the drillhole have been submitted for multi-element assay with the turnaround time expected to take up to eight weeks.

Raiden Resources (ASX:RDN) has received a preliminary heritage survey report from the recently completed heritage survey over its priority copper-nickel-PGE targets at the Mt Scholl project area in WA.

RDN says the final heritage report is expected in the following weeks with drilling to begin as soon as a PoW (Program of Work) is submitted and approved.

Drilling activities will get underway as soon as all regulatory processes, and driller selection, have been completed.

 

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

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