ASX Small Caps Lunch Wrap: Who else is showing a lot of guts this morning?

We’ve all dreamed about it at some point in our lives – an unexpected, and quite sizeable financial windfall, and what we’d do with the money.

That’s the dilemma one Chilean chap faced earlier this month, when he opened up his banking app to find that his workplace had accidentally overpaid him – by about 27.5 years’ worth.

The mistake was made by (we assume) a fat-fingered accounting drone. Precisely the kind you’d find working at a company like Chilean mob Cial Alimentos, makers of some of the world’s Greatest and Greasiest™ sausages and smallgoods.

Somehow, whoever was entering data into the system saw the 500,000 peso figure, stabbed their porky digits at the keypad, and managed to type 165,398,851 (about $260,000) instead. Or just hit their head on the keyboard after overdosing halfway through an entire coil of longaniza.

When the man, whom Cial has declined to name, found his monthly pay cheque was 330 times bigger than it was meant to be, he did the right thing and reported the error to the company.

Cial asked for the money back, and – pleased with having handled things perfectly – sat back and congratulated themselves on a job well done. Crisis averted, who’d like a slice of ham?

“First thing in the morning, I’ll pop down to the bank,” the newly-wealthy office worker told the Chorizo Kings of Chile. Next morning, though, he didn’t show for work, and nor was he answering the phone.

A quick call to the bank by the Sausage People confirmed the money hadn’t moved. All good.

When the worker finally did return Cial’s calls, he claimed to have overslept and was popping down to the bank that afternoon, for real this time. Aaand two days later, the office worker mailed a letter – via his lawyer – to his boss, to say he had resigned, effective immediately.

And he hasn’t been seen since – a bold move for a man with a small fortune in his back pocket. The last thing we’d want is an angry Chilean mob armed with meat cleavers coming after us… especially a mob that owns pig farms.

TO MARKETS

After a few days of smiles and rainbows and other happy things, the ASX 200 has gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, dropping sharply from the open and heading south for most of the morning. As lunchtime approaches, there’s been a slight turnaround, but the benchmark is still down more than 1.0%.

Consumer Staples (+0.03%) and Energy (+0.30%) have been paddling harder than forgotten toddlers to keep their head above water, but everywhere around them are sectors doing their best to drag them down beneath the waves.

Health Care (-2.56%), Real Estate (-2.94%), Info Tech (-2.70%) and Telcos (-2.35%) have all take a pounding since markets opened, thanks in no small part to a profound funk coming from the direction of Wall Street after a tragic overnight showing.

Biggest losers among the seniors this morning included Carsales.com (ASX:CAR), down more than 13.0% despite finalising an $842 million from its 1 for 4.16 pro-rata accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer that was announced on Monday, 27 June.

The market gave that, and the announcement that the funds will go towards acquiring the remaining 50.1% interest in Trader Interactive for approximately $1,172 million, an emphatic thumbs-down from the moment Carsales came out of its trading halt today.

Imugene gave back a chunk of its gains coming from recent successful Phase 2 testing of its incomprehensible gastric cancer drug, while tech boffins Siteminder also handed back recent gains stemming from its shares coming out of escrow tomorrow.

And, would you believe it? It’s Sayona Mining (ASX:SYA), continuing to be something of a bellwether for general market sentiment, on the downswing to the tune of more than 7.0% for the morning.

There were some big ticket winners, but the pickings on that list are slim at best – the only large cap mover of note has been Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR), which has been on an upswing in recent days.

Liontown’s had an extra leg-up this morning, after revealing it signed its third binding offtake agreement, this time with…well, Ford actually.

The agreement, for 150,000 dry metric tonnes per annum for five years will underpin development of Liontown’s Kathleen Valley Lithium Project.
 

Not the ASX

Overseas, and Wall Street was once again a horror show, with the Nasdaq heading for the basement (-3.0%) and dragging the S%P (-2.0%) and the Dow (-1.5%) with it.

Asian markets are also down, but weathering Wall Street’s hand on the back of their heads better than Australian markets have managed.

Hong Kong has struggled the most, dropping 1.04%. Japanese shares aren’t far behind, down 0.87%, and in Shanghai things aren’t quite so grim with the market down 0.2% before lunch.

In commodities, oil has fallen 0.3% this morning while natural gas has remained neutrally buoyant, staying unchanged. Safe haven gold has climbed 0.15%, copper is down 0.25% and silver is flatter than the Queen’s best flatware.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for June 29 [intraday]:

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

With the market paying nothing but meatgrinder music this morning, the only really big dances in terms of percentage have come from the penny and sub-penny players, on ultra-thin volumes.

Worth noting, however, has been a decent 17.0% hike for Grand Gulf Energy (ASX:GGE) after it confirmed a helium discovery at Jesse#1A, a potential company-making well at its Red Helium project in Utah. As usual, Reuben pegged it this morning. Clever boy, he is.

And HRL Holdings (ASX:HRL) is continuing to climb on the back of an acquisition proposal from ALS Limited (ASX:ALQ), with the price climbing 15.0% to nudge the $0.16 valuation ALS has on the table.

HRL has continued to keep schtum about the offer, but there could be news from there very soon, so watch this space.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks for June 29 [intraday]:

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