The ASX 200 burst through the doors this morning like it was two thirds the way through a pub crawl in the small Irish town of Killorglin (which has about 12 pubs within about 200m or so). That is to say, it promptly staggered about in a non-linear fashion.

But the important part about that is that it’s up. It’s in the green at the time of beginning this article, with a 0.14 percentage gain.

Something, or somebody, else recently moving along in a, let’s say staggered way, is top Scottish ultra-marathon runner Joasia Zakrzewski, who crossed the line in third place at the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool 50-mile race.

(And yes, this is our second marathon-runner mention of the week, but no, this time it doesn’t involve crop-sprayed running shorts. At least we think it doesn’t.)

What it does involve, however, is Zakrzewski completing part of her race in a car, which, unsurprisingly, has since seen her disqualified from the event completely.

Clearly, what is most surprising about that, is that A) she completed part of the running race in a car; B) no one seemed to notice at first; and C) she still only managed to finish third. Maybe it was a sh*tty old Datsun 120Y that kept breaking down every 20 metres?

As reported by the BBC, Zakrzewski is suspected to have travelled 2.5 miles of the 50-mile race by car.

https://twitter.com/AndrewMcAvoyAM/status/1648399316690563072

“The 47-year-old GP, from Dumfries, is understood to have been tracked on GPX mapping data covering a mile of the race in just one minute 40 seconds,” reads the Beeb report.

The runner’s excuse? Apparently she felt sick during the race and wanted to drop out. But… yeah, also wanted to finish on the podium. Turns out arriving for a major running event the night before after travelling 48 hours from Australia, wasn’t such good prep.

And neither was the lack of due diligence on the fact major running events such as these use sophisticated tracking data, which can pretty easily detect when someone’s just absolutely smashed the world record (non-car-assisted) run of one mile (3 mins, 40 secs).

As for the driving accomplice, those details haven’t been divulged, but what we do know is that UK Athletics and the director of the GB Ultras race, Wayne Drinkwater, finds it all “very disappointing”.

The well-hydrated (probably) race director noted that, after the finish, he had received information that a runner had gained an “unsporting, competitive advantage during a section of the event”.

Zakrzewski, who won a 24-hour running event in Australia a couple of years ago, has reportedly said she’s feeling “genuinely sorry for any upset caused”.

Speaking of upsets, let’s see if there’s been any in the world of finance and speculative assets since we diverted off course there for a good minute and 40 seconds.

 

TO MARKETS

Actually, regarding our “staggering about like a drunk in an Irish pub” thesis, there’s not much upsetting going on with the Aussie stonks benchmark. It’s travelling along as earlier reported.

At the time of writing, it’s pulled back once again, to 7,364, but at least is still in the green with a fractional 24-hour gain of 0.052%.

We should’ve looked to Eddy “Early Doors” Sunarto first, because he told us all that the ASX was likely to open flattish today. He was ultimately correct, it’s just that it took a little while to reach that point. Something about broken clocks, something about twice a day.

Digging into specifics a little, here’s the sector-based snapshot, per Market Index data:

Source: marketindex.com.au

We’re all living in a Materials world today. Again.

InfoTech is also mildly aroused, while everything else clearly isn’t today, with Discretionary consumer stocks, Industrials, Energy and Real Estate leading the Debbie Downer-ness.

Is anything in particular catching our eye in some of the heftier small caps? Not massively, no. Guess these ones are going alright, though:

• Lindian Resources (ASX:LIN): +9% on no particular news we’re spying today. Although a couple of days ago there was mention of some pretty damn good assay results – “more high-grade rare earths at Kangankunde with best continuous intersections yet”, that sort of thing.

• Argosy Minerals (ASX:AGY): +6% on no particular news.

• Patriot Battery Metals (ASX:PMT): 6% on no particular news.

 

NOT THE ASX

As Eddy noted in his always must-read morning Market Highlights wrap, the ASX is, once again, following in the virtual footsteps of Wall Street. The major US indices closed fairly flattish overnight (S&P500: +0.086%; Nasdaq: -0.035%; Dow Jones: -0.031%).

Some highlights:

• Netflix and Goldman Sachs share prices both dipped a tad on some less-than-optimal Q1 earnings/profit figures.

• Meanwhile the crypto-interested (just gotta get that in there) Bank of America’s share price rose 0.65% after it beat earnings estimates for the first few months of the year.

• Crude oil prices were flat overnight, and WTI continues to trade at around US$80.90 a barrel. Analysts are keenly watching this one. And that’s because the relationship between oil and the US dollar is often negatively correlated. Meaning that when the price of oil goes up, the US dollar often dips.

A dipping US dollar is generally not bad for safe-haven and risk assets. Speaking of which…

Eddy notes that gold is “struggling for gains, trading higher by just 0.5% to US$2,005.80 an ounce as investors are tentatively back to risk-on mode”.

As for Bitcoin and crypto? Bitcoin has clawed its way back above US$30k again at the time of writing, while the crypto industry delights in the absolute pasting the pasty SEC chairman Gary Gensler copped overnight by various US Congress members.

More on that and more, in this morning’s Mooners and Shakers.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

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

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

Standouts:

• Health House International (ASX:HHI); +150% on positive quarterly cashflow reporting news.

• Wide Open Agriculture (ASX:WOA); +50%, also on healthy quarterly results/update.

• Carnegie Clean Energy (ASX:CCE) : +50% on no fresh reports.

• Ora Gold (ASX:OAU): +50% on nothing new to note.

• Decmil (ASX:DCG): +29% on some good profitability results in Q3 FY2023 and strong anticipated growth with a robust pipeline project forming.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

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

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

Read MoreMaterials

Featured Companies

You might be interested in