Following on from our story last week of the Highly Foolish Science People who turned a dead spider into a soul-crushingly morbid claw machine, our army of informants have tipped us off to another tale of scientific science that is well-worthy of a mention.
A team of researchers at Duke University in North Carolina were having a bit of a tinker with a few chemicals and the corpse of a pig they had murdered, when they discovered that the solution they were using to replace Ol’ Porky’s blood was bringing its dead organs back to life.
The organs, including the heart, liver and kidneys were reportedly back in action and doing the kinds things organs are famous for: pumping blood, removing waste products from the body and providing the opening bars of The Phantom of the Opera.
The solution is known as OrganEx, for obvious reasons – the “Organ” part is because of which part of the body it works on, and the “Ex” part at the end is to make it sound cool and slightly dangerous.
We jest, of course, because it’s actually pretty amazing, in that it raises a really interesting ethical question about how dead something needs to be, before it’s actually dead… like, properly dead.
What it also raises is a vastly-increased chance of all those smooth-brained super-geniuses that had themselves cryogenically frozen actually being resurrected, hundreds of years after all their friends and relatives chose the entirely more sensible option of dying.
That’s why news of the team’s breakthrough has been met with a bout of heavily-suppressed glee from Waly Disney’s frozen head, which is currently being used as a counterweight, deep in the arse of the famously top-heavy Mickey Mouse costume at Disneyland.
Disney quite famously (allegedly) had his head frozen when he died, as he wanted to be brought back to life when the technology was available to do so, and the statute of limitations had rendered his tax problems null and void.
The issue as to whether the world is ready for Disney’s own personal brand of collaboration with ‘the wrong side of history’ remains to be seen.
(A quick indulgence, if I may… the bio-tech in this story could revolutionise organ transplants in humans, but that’s decades away. If you enjoyed reading this, please know that you wouldn’t have had the chance to if not for the organ donor that gave me my new liver in 2020. Without it, I’d be dead and you’d be bored – which sounds like a terrible time for everyone. Go here and sign up to give your bits away once you’re done with them).
TO MARKETS
Big news in mining this morning is OZ Minerals’ (ASX:OZL) decision to slap BHP right on the top of its grabby, grabby hands, rejecting a $25 per share “We’ll take the lot of it, thanks” offer this morning.
News of the rejection by the $8.5 billion dollar company saw its price jump by 35% before lunch, all the way up to… $25.40.
Sandfire Resources (ASX:SFR) and Sayona (ASX:SYA) also climbed this morning, up 8.0% and 11.1%, probably in sympathy with OZ.
Dropping its bundle this morning was Suncorp (ASX:SUN), which announced dividends and a stunning 34% profit crash this morning. We’re not sure which of those is responsible for the ~6% price drop, but whichever way you cut it, losing a third of your profit for the quarter is an ugly beast to be looking at first thing in the morning.
In crypto, and the Big Coins had a decent weekend, rising unsteadily since Friday to be in the green again. ETH is up 1.17% since yesterday, with BTC (+0.76%) still struggling to keep up. Solana (+3.48%) and Cardano (2.97%) have done well, but XRP is having a bad hair day, down 0.30%.
And for anyone keen on getting some money into crypto but aren’t quite ready for the inevitable hair-raising panic that comes with such a volatile investment space, local blockchain-based fintech Block Earner tells Stockhead it’s launching a new way for investors who like the idea of crypto but can’t look directly at it because it makes their risk aversion spidey sense tingle.
The company’s new Crypto Earner purpose-built tier one asset provider is offering access to a fixed 4% annual yield with the funds held in ETH or BTC, which you can pull out whenever you want.
As usual, we’ll get into the small caps after a quick look overseas.
NOT THE ASX
Top Bloke Eddy Sunarto tells us that Wall Street ended Friday fairly mixed, despite strong non-farm payrolls data for July which jumped past forecasts, with the S&P 500 down 0.16%, the Dow Jones up 0.23% while tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.50%.
According to the US Department of Labor, non-farm payrolls increased by 528,000 in July versus the forecast of 250,000 – figures that are expected to add a bit of complication into the Fed’s next monetary policy decision in September.
“Fed officials were already pushing back on the idea of a Fed pivot, and now it seems they will be debating whether they need to be even more aggressive to tackle inflation given how strong the labor market is performing,” said Oanda analyst, Edward Moya.
According to Commsec, US rate futures have priced in a 69% chance of a 75bps hike in September, up from about 41% before the payroll data.
Asian markets this morning are also a bit jumbled, with the Nikkei up 0.21%, Hong Kong down 0.68% and the Shanghai market index flatter than Walt Disney’s most recent EKG.
In commodities, oil is down (-0.18), gas has fallen (-2.13%) and metals have barely shifted the needle since this morning, with gold, silver and copper all with 0.04% of dead even.
ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS
Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for August 8[intraday]:
Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:
Code Company Price % Market Cap AWV Anova Metals Ltd 0.015 50% $14,980,942 ANL Amani Gold Ltd 0.0015 50% $23,693,441 EVE EVE Health Group Ltd 0.0015 50% $5,050,483 LNU Linius Tech Limited 0.007 40% $10,006,832 OZL OZ Minerals 25.5 35% $6,333,376,138 CDD Cardno Limited 0.875 35% $25,389,431 C6C Copper Mountain 2.23 34% $27,832,632 CTV Colortv Limited 0.008 33% $927,739 MOQ MOQ Limited 0.064 28% $15,516,309 HAR Harangaresources 0.19 27% $6,272,103 SOP Synertec Corporation 0.19 27% $53,604,084 ARE Argonaut Resources 0.0025 25% $7,212,410 CFO Cfoam Limited 0.005 25% $2,935,363 WBE Whitebark Energy 0.0025 25% $11,296,438 XST Xstate Resources 0.0025 25% $6,430,363 IPB IPB Petroleum Ltd 0.011 22% $3,331,694 HCD Hydrocarbon Dynamic 0.017 21% $8,218,847 ANR Anatara Ls Ltd 0.072 20% $4,281,337 CVV Caravel Minerals Ltd 0.24 20% $80,037,443 LRS Latin Resources Ltd 0.09 20% $145,937,557 WYX Western Yilgarn NL 0.12 20% $4,118,250 MTB Mount Burgess Mining 0.006 20% $4,295,856 MTH Mithril Resources 0.006 20% $14,651,165 3DA Amaero International 0.215 19% $43,652,535 SLZ Sultan Resources Ltd 0.13 18% $9,161,283
In among the Small Cap Climbers this morning, and Cardno (ASX:CDD) had a huge surge early this morning, rising from $0.65 to $1.00, which was a bit of a head-scratcher – and there’s a bit to unpack.
Cardano recently completed its sale of Cardno International Development, with proceeds of $56.5m to be distributed to Cardno Shareholders, equivalent to $1.70 per share, in three tranches.
The first tranche was paid a few weeks back, leaving two more to come over the next 7 weeks, worth 44c and 48c per share for a total of a locked in return of 92c from a 65c share. The price flew up to $1.00 before settling at 86.5% when the ASX threw on the brakes by pausing trade at 12:25pm.
Elsewhere, and it’s copper miners and explorers on the rise as far as the eye can see, with Sultan Resources (ASX:SLZ) is leading the charge (+36.3%), with Copper Mountain Mining (ASX:C6C) not far behind (+34%).
At the Top of the Bottom, and the most noteworthy there is still Horizon Gold (ASX:HRN), continuing its post-quarterly slide, down another 21.5% this morning.
ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS
Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for August 8[intraday]:
Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:
Code Company Price % Market Cap DTI DTI Group Ltd 0.011 -39% $8,073,925 AVW Avira Resources Ltd 0.003 -25% $8,475,160 RNX Renegade Exploration 0.006 -25% $7,117,013 C29 C29Metalslimited 0.12 -23% $4,408,458 HRN Horizon Gold Ltd 0.3 -21% $47,007,915 DLM Dominion Minerals 0.061 -19% $15,532,538 MVP Medical Developments 1.99 -16% $168,411,136 CY5 Cygnus Gold Limited 0.195 -15% $27,136,622 OM1 Omnia Metals Group 0.15 -14% $4,494,000 ADX ADX Energy Ltd 0.006 -14% $21,418,315 GMN Gold Mountain Ltd 0.006 -14% $8,352,044 ROO Roots Sustainable 0.003 -14% $2,623,714 KGD Kula Gold Limited 0.025 -14% $6,240,093 REC Rechargemetals 0.2 -13% $9,152,850 TTB Total Brain Ltd 0.04 -13% $6,151,172 ABE Ausbondexchange 0.31 -13% $12,381,045 LSR Lodestar Minerals 0.007 -13% $13,907,499 JXT Jaxstaltd 0.022 -12% $8,564,455 DNK Danakali Limited 0.225 -12% $93,925,258 ZMM Zimi Ltd 0.079 -11% $5,814,222 NWM Norwest Minerals 0.04 -11% $8,127,332 AL8 Alderan Resource Ltd 0.008 -11% $4,784,095 DTC Damstra Holdings 0.205 -11% $59,270,169 PUR Pursuit Minerals 0.017 -11% $18,872,685 TIA Tian An Aust Limited 0.26 -10% $25,116,561