Arguments between politicians are normal. It’s an expected part of the gig that someone whose views don’t align with yours is going to take exception to something you’ve said or done, and tempers boil over.

We’ve talked about it before, but actual parliamentary brawls are as uncommon as they are completely awesome.

The spectacle of a gaggle of finance policy wonks throwing hands and lobbing chairs at each other is Olympic-level greatness.

Like this one from Armenia:

Or this one in Jordan:

Or these horrifyingly brutal examples from China:

But in the UK, they do things differently. It’s very rare for actual fights to break out, and while this factoid may be ever-so-slightly apocryphal, the table that sits in the middle of the House of Commons is said to be two swords’ length wide, so that should violence erupt, neither side could reach the other with a weapon.

One can only assume, then, that the fact that parliamentarians are quite often bloated, scrofulous gas bags has been true for quite some time, because the last time I checked, it’s quite easy just to wander round the end of that table, if you’re feeling a bit stabby.

Which brings us to the recent news that there are two former British politicians who have been at each other’s throats for decades, and in what might be a case of semi-drunken bravado, there has been a gauntlet thrown to the floor.

Nigel Farage, the super-smooth-brain former leader of the Brexit Party, has taken to social media to challenge former Prime Minister and ambulatory beanbag Boris Johnson to a boxing match.

We would, as they say in the classics, watch the absolute s–t out of that fight.

The idea of Farage flinging his old-man bingo-winged noodle arms at Johnson, a sobbing dollop of shiny wet pizza dough, with the air ringing to the sound of bilous grunts and the swishing of mis-timed uppercuts for some reason makes us happy.

And if you’re gonna fight for anything, fighting for joy is surely a worthy cause – even if it means we all have to watch the village idiot fight a golem made entirely of cold custard.

 

TO MARKETS

Speaking of parties and things that make us happy, Australian markets are on the up-and-up this morning. The benchmark went zooming at open today, cracking a +0.5 morning glory before powering on to add 0.95% – a solid effort in anyone’s books.

Consumer Discretionary (+1.69%), Health Care (+1.54%), Industrials (+1.24%), Real Estate (+1.36%), Materials (+1.79%) and Utilities (+1.43%) have all smashed through the 1.0% barrier this morning.

But absolutely crushing it is InfoTech (+2.43%), which has happily declared that “six and out is a dumb rule” and has been relentlessly clobbering the backyard cricket ball over the fence and into Old Lady Sheedy’s prize cucumber patch.

The benchmark’s almost 1.0% rise today could have been an absolute corker, if it weren’t for such a dismal display from the Energy sector, which posted a 3.64% slump so gruesome that The Australian Classification Board says we’re not allowed to show any pictures of it.

Shopping for expensive suits in the Big’n’Tall department this morning is Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR), popping out a +7.8% pudding, and Megaport (ASX:MP1) has stacked on an extra 9.2% in its bid to claim the kings of on-demand elastic interconnection services crown.

And Sayona’s (ASX:SYA) back in the winner’s circle, up 7.27% – which means, as is tradition, we must all get up out of our seats for a 30-second burst of vigorous swing dancing, in honour of Sayona’s joyously erratic trading price.

There’s only one big kid making the bad boy list today. Woodside (ASX:WDS) is trading 6.7% lower after going ex-div, adding to the Energy sector’s already sad-inducing woes.

 

NOT THE ASX

On Wall Street, and things have improved after a strong overnight rally, which had all three indices on the rise: Dow (+1.40%), S&P (+1.83%) and the Nasdaq (+2.14%).

Earlybird Eddy Sunarto reports it’s been a decent day for the major US Techs – Tesla rose by 3.5%, and Amazon by 3%.

Apple shares also rose 1% after the company launched its iPhone 14 and Watch Series 8. The base iPhone 14 starts at $1,399, and the iPhone 14 Plus will start at $1,579 RRP.

After rising sharply over the last few days, yields on US treasuries finally fell. The 10-year fell 6bp to 3.28%, and the 2-year also fell 6bp to 3.44%.

In Asia, it looks like 80s hip-hop DJ sensation Sir Mix-a-lot has made a surprise live appearance, throwing market results into small but noticeable chaos.

The Nikkei is up +2.07%, Hong Kong is down 0.26% and whoever’s doing whatever they do in Shanghai says its benchmark is hovering around +0.10% today.

At the commodities desk, it’s oil that’s on everyone’s lips, and it’s not from their breakfast of butter sticks wrapped in bacon fat. A surprise lift in US oil stocks has weighed on an already subdued market, limiting oil price gains.

Oil is up 0.89% while gas is near-steady on -0.03%. Gold is down 0.11%, but silver has jumped 0.44% in hot pursuit of copper, up 0.63%.

And in Crypto Crevasse, where the losses are steep but the bar tab is steeper, Rob “Digitally-certified for Your Safety” Badman has all the gossip about ETH’s struggles to maintain momentum as The Merge continues to stress everyone out.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for September 8 [intraday]:

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There has been a fascinating soapie playing out around Australian Pacific Coal (ASX:AQC) for the past week or so, and it looks like there’s been something of a breakthrough, as AQC is going off like a frog in a sock, up 111.90% this morning. Wait… it’s at 132.4% now.

That one’s going to be something to watch, we have an update on the situation here from The Magnificent Reuben, and Christian can give you the deets at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, Terra Uranium (ASX:T92) has arrived on the ASX scene for the first time this morning, and has thrown a screamer of a launch party, jumping 62.5% from the moment the public could get its greedy little hands on it.

However PVM Minerals (ASX:PVW) has fallen sharply, down 29.3% despite encouraging results from its Tanami project.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for September 8 [intraday]:

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