THE ASX has jumped a very tidy 1.0% straight outta the gate this morning, and anyone who’s been pitching pennies at Odessa Minerals recently is probably going to be very, very happy about now… but we’ll get to the deets on all that in a second.

Because we want to talk marketing strategy for a minute or two – in particular a recent foray into  marketing and PR strategy that is remarkable for how badly it’s missed the mark.

We all know Fortescue (ASX:FMG). It’s a company that has made stupendous quantities of money digging monstrously large holes in the ground and then selling whatever comes out of those holes off to Big Bizness, to be made into things to consume.

It’s very, very clear that this doesn’t rate very well in terms of being Environmentally Friendly, and is green in exactly the way a fire engine isn’t.

Of course, it’s super-easy to point the cannons at a soft, slow-moving target like a mega-mine company and fire off a few snide salvos. But we won’t, because – helpfully – Fortescue has gone and made a whole new one.

Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) is the company’s Green Hydrogen Energy Play. We could go on and on (and on) about the fact that this is blatant greenwashing, slathered on so thick the whole thing smells like a dead hippie being burnt on a pile of cannabis leaves.

But we’re not the target audience, apparently, because FFI has engaged the services of cartoon misanthropes Rick & Morty to help sell its green-cred to The Kids under the banner of “Saving the Planet without Killing It”.

No, really. That’s what it says, scrolling like the CNN ticker of doom above animation shorts that are so half-baked, if they were cookies you’d need a spoon to eat them.

It’s a bold move. So bold, in fact, that there was simply no way in this, or in any other reality, it could do anything other than be ridiculous.

Rick & Morty is known for being breathtakingly (and awesomely) unpleasant and foul – and for its rabid fanbase who don’t seem to realise that they are actually part of the joke.

Those fans are the same ones that rioted in several McDonald’s outlets in the US, because a chicken nugget dipping sauce made famous by the cartoon was in limited supply.

Restaurants were partially destroyed due to a lack of Szechuan dipping sauce. Let that sink in for a second – and now fast forward to someone, somewhere deciding that’s a fanbase FFI wants to hitch its Brave New Green Business to.

It would be almost forgivable – almost – if this cruel brand hybrid was something worth watching. Spoiler alert: it very much isn’t.

It’s a gigantic, searingly terrible misfire – so bad that it’s too bad to be so bad that it’s good.

You can check it out for yourself here. But don’t say we didn’t warn you – because it’s a huge Green Hole of Awful so powerful, not even irony can help you escape.

 
TO MARKETS

We like it when the week starts off nice, and a 1.0% pop first thing on a Monday is just the ticket for getting the blood flowing and the pupils dilating better than a blind date with a supermodel.

The benchmark has been holding steady around that 1.0% mark since 10:10am, and as we shuffle towards lunch there’s nary a blip of claret across the sectors as well… but only just.

Materials is out front as the standard bearer this morning, +2.37% so far and climbing, with InfoTech (+1.66%) Utilities  (+1.22%)  and Consumer Discretionary (+0.94%) closee behind with weapons in hand.

Bringing up the rear are, naturally, the medics – clearly scared and barely hanging in there as the battle rages around them, Health shares are grimly clutching a 0.01% gain – and we can only hope they’re able to stay in the game.

There are three Titans of Industry with one hand on the trophy already this morning, and they’re all familiar names.

Jolly Ol’ Saint Nickel Industries (ASX:NIC) is ho-ho-ho-ing about the place, with its sackful of +7.2% gains ready to hand out the anyone who’s been good and remembered to leave milk, cookies and an enormous bundle of cash out for them last night.

Not really. Nickel’s had a jump off the back of a solid resource upgrade from its Hengjaya Mine, which the company now reports contains 3,700,000 tons of nickel metal and 270,000 tons of cobalt. Come in spinner.

Also in the charts is De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG), because it’s De Grey and De Grey has a lot of gold and people like gold so they like De Grey and that’s how we ended up here.

And Sayona (ASX:SYA) is up 7.69% this morning, but it is – as always – absolutely anyone’s guess why. Sayona, like The Lord, moves in mysterious ways.

 

NOT THE ASX

A rapid glance in the rearview mirror shows that Wall Street had a fun and funky end to the week, with the major indices finishing higher. The Dow added +1.19%, the S&P hit +1.53% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up a calculated +2.11%.

Our Man Eddy Sunarto was up early to report that shares of e-signature company DocuSign soared 10.5% after reporting an earnings beat and a forecast upgrade, and US investors are expected to  be closely monitoring the US CPI data due tonight ahead of the FOMC meeting on September 21.

But those US Fed ratchet jaws can’t seem to stop blathering on about how profoundly terrible everything is. This time it’s the US Money World’s answer to The Muppets’ Statler and Waldorf spilling their guts and supporting a significant September rate hike, which experts are pretty much unanimous will be 75bp.

In the UK, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II has given Britain a few days reprieve from the Bank of England’s upcoming monetary decision, which has been pushed back to September 22.

Most had expected the BoE to hike its rates on Friday by 50bp to 2.25% – the highest level since December 2008 – which is going to be a tough sell for the new British PM Liz Truss, who will no doubt be facing a hostile British public unless someone steps in to give her a sock and make her a free elf.

To Asian markets, Shanghai has added +0.82% and Hong Kong shares have risen +2.69%, while in Japan the Nikkei’s up 1.13%.

Over at the commodities desk, things are a bit more chaotic, as earnest bearded men and women work to scrub the seagulls clean after oil spilled -1.47%, and natural gas added 1.1% because Russia’s still got its foot on the neck of Europe’s gas supply.

Shiny things prices are mixed as well. Gold is down 0.19%, silver’s up 0.34% and copper’s dropped 0.7% so far today.

Rising from the Crypto Crypt this morning is zombie-coin Luna (or Luna2 or Profoundly Unstable Coin or whatever you want to call it), which has come crawling from the bowels of s–tcoin hell to hit $6.

As always, Rob “Not Rob Zombie… the other Rob” Badman has the rest of the news and gossip from Imaginary Moneyland over at Mooners & Shakers.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for September 12 [intraday]:

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In Small Caps, penny pusher Odessa Minerals (ASX:ODE) has spiked harder than an ill-timed porcupine romance, after revealing that two of its three Lyndon lithium/REE/Nickel-Copper tenement licences have been granted.

It’s not huge news until you factor in that the tenements are literally just over the fence from Dreadnought’s (ASX:DRE) Mangaroon REE and Ni-Cu Project, which adds substantial weight to Odessa’s hopes that it’s about to start digging into a serious resource.

ODE is up a neat-and-tidy 100% at the time of writing, easing somewhat from its even larger climb earlier in the day.

Also on the up today is Pioneer Credit (ASX:PNC) which has surged 18.5% on news that it has let its now-former auditor Deloitte go, in favour of RSM Australia, after a bumpy ride through a hugely complicated refinancing.

And The Hydration Pharmaceuticals Company (ASX:HPC), wholesale suppliers and online retailers of Hydralyte – the electrolyte replacement goop that tastes like an orange that floated here from Spain – is up around 22% this morning on no news, flimsy volume and we’re not sure why either.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for September 12 [intraday]:

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