Much like not-the-most-popular former Aussie cricket captain going around, the Aussie stocks benchmark hobbled its way to the breakfast table this morning.

The ASX 200 opened a fraction lower this morn (-0.06%) on the back of pretty ordinary performance on Wall Street overnight (AEDT).

Said former captain, Michael Clarke, was hindered late in his glittering career by a series of annoying injuries – back issues, hamstrings (three times), and probably a bit of a sore neck after being throttled by Simon Katich in the Australian Test team dressing room that time.

His latest hammy mishap, though, could be his worst yet, as it came with a side of major public embarrassment, a literal slap or two to the face and possible relationship and celeb-mate bust-uppery.

Insert obligatory crap cricket-themed joke here. Okay, we’ll do it: Howzat for mental disintegration?

Clarke managed to tear the troublesome tendon in a Noosa park overnight while attempting to duck and weave from accusations of non-sandpaper-related cheating, as well as flying Will Smith-like blows to the noggin from an enraged girlfriend. His enraged girlfriend.

The very public and ugly spat between he, Jade Yarbrough (the sister of Jasmine Yarbrough – wife of Karl “As Seen on TV” Stefanovic) and, er, Karl “As Seen on TV” Stefanovic… played out like a scene from a modernised, sweary, wardrobe-limited, role-reversed, outdoor production of Othello.

Though perhaps it’s better described as bogan reality drama of the highest order.

It’s entertainingly cringe-worthy stuff. And you can watch the grainy, passer-by footage of it here and read all about it on news.com.au if you’re so inclined, don’t much like any of these people, and fancy looking down your nose at it all for a couple of mins.

And here then, hurriedly tucked behind square for a quick single, is the segue into more important news…

A gander at what else is hobbling along, clutching its hammy and hoping for a better day.

 

TO MARKETS

While Clarke’s PR team is probs working at double speed for damage control, it appears the ASX is picking up as we type, and is now back in the green (0.27%). Maybe it’s not going to be such a lame-ass day after all.

The latest ABS jobs data has been released and while it isn’t awesome, it’s at least in a holding pattern, with the unemployment rate steady-ish at 3.5 per cent.

Checking in with some of the sectors catching our eyes:

Real estate (+0.91%), Telecommunication (+0.68%) and Materials (+0.63%) are all flying the flag of positivity. While Energy (-1.08%); IT (-0.84%) and Staples (-0.29%) are having more of a sad “Pup” kinda day so far.

There’s a lone techy unicorn prancing about in the charts today. Nanosonics (ASX:NAN) has nannoed its way up very handily by 9.39% at the time of writing. This comes on the back of the infection-prevention outfit’s very positive outlook for H1 FY23, released today.

Nanosonics is crystal balling a before-tax profit of about $11.4m compared with $3.3m in the prior corresponding period. Not bad at all. If it plays out.

 

NOT THE ASX

At the end of the session on Wall Street, the major indices dropped by more than 1% each.

Eddy “Crack of Dawn” Sunarto summarised the following:

  • The ASX will open lower on Thursday, tracking movements in New York 
  • A slew of economics data were released in the US overnight
  • Microsoft to fire 10,000 staff

And he was right, too – on all three points, adding: “Recession risks are rising after a larger-than-expected PPI decline, a major downshift in retail spending, and plunging industrial production”.

If you’d like index specifics, here they are. The S&P 500 finished trading at -1.56%; Nasdaq: -1.24% and the Dow a little more worse for wear: -1.81%.

In Asian markets, you won’t get much from Taiwan, as its stock exchange is on holiday leading into the Chinese New Year, but elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei is still wobbling, down 1.05%, while Shanghai is tracking at -0.13% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is -0.63% ahead of its Lunar NY celebrations.

Crypto… some bloke called Rob Badman has all the news you need for the moment over at Mooners and Shakers. TLDR? Bitcoin and crypto is trending lower. Partly because of the DOJ smackdown of a Russian crypto exchange you’ve never heard of. Partly because of further crypto contagion.

And partly, perhaps mainly actually, because of macroeconomic factors not-entirely related to crypto.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for January 19 [intraday]:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

Yeah, righto, where’s my lithium news, we hear you ask. Patriot Battery Metals (ASX: PMT) is bringing it.

PMT is in a more-than-decent mood today – a small-caps standout performer up 24% on the news it’s drilled its highest-grade lithium drill intercept to date. Specifically: a 156.9 m interval of 2.12% Li2O, including 25.0 m of 5.04% Li2O – at the CV5 Pegmatite, Quebec, Canada. Reubs has more on this, much more… here.

Meanwhile, as relayed to this columnist by Stockhead‘s most-excellent energy and resources guru Bevis Yeo… 

Shares in Bass Oil (ASX:BAS) soared this morning despite a conspicuous lack of any news today.

While there has been the usual ramblings about takeover offers for the company, which had made big gains after in November after pulling out a massive in-place condensate/oil estimate totalling “845 billion barrels” that was quickly corrected to a still substantial 845 million barrels, the truth may just be a little more down-to-earth.

The interest might actually stem from gas major Santos (ASX:STO) noting in its report for the December 2022 quarter that it had successfully drilled and fracture stimulated the Beanbush 3H ST3 Deep Coal well and will incorporate the results into its Deep Coal appraisal plans.

Said well is located directly adjacent to Bass’ PEL 182, which serves to somewhat de-risk the big in-place condensate/oil estimate as well as potential for in-place gas of up to 21 trillion cubic feet of gas that the company says might be present.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for January 19 [intraday]:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

Read MoreLithium

Featured Companies

You might be interested in