It’s another Monday morning, and another start to the week that held loads and loads of promise for the ASX for all of 10 minutes, before the crushing reality of five solid days of trading proved an insurmountable burden to bear.

The day kicked off with a 0.6% jump – much like I did this morning, lying warm in bed and giggling in my sleep as I felt my cat gently licking my cheek, before I remembered that I do not own a cat and my own screaming startled me completely out of bed.

I’ll get to what the actual market is doing in a minute, but first I have a small slice of current affairs – a whistle-stop on the hustings in New South Wales, if you will – of a matter of Big Time Serious Importance.

It might surprise you to know that the most pressing issue of the day isn’t spiralling costs of living, a property rental market hot enough to broil a wombat, or the ever-growing list of clearly corrupt politicians that are cycling through the doors of the state’s parliamentary HQ.

The biggest issue demanding everyone’s attention is a fresh round of investigative penguinology from renowned aquatic birdlife expert, Lyle Shelton, who has turned the entirety of Sydney on its head with stunning new claims that the city’s most famously gay penguin pair – Sphen and Magic – are faking it!

I know, right? I am as aghast as you are, let me tell you.

For those not in the know, Sphen and Magic are believed to be homosexual, after the two male (yep – people who know how to tell these things have checked) penguins partnered up back in 2018.

This is, according to people who actually know what they’re talking about, fairly unusual – but has been pointed to as an indication that non-heterosexual pairings can, and do, exist in the animal kingdom.

According to people who clearly don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s an abomination – which is where Mr Shelton comes in.

The backstory to this is actually kinda cute. Back in the before-fore times, prior to Covid ravaging the landscape and when it was still safe to cough on the bus without fear of being lynched and left for dead, staff at the Sydney Acquarium noticed two of their gentoo penguins were being pretty chummy with each other.

The two penguintlemen (a real word that I just made up, and for that you are welcome) started behaving the way boy and girl penguins do in the lead up to breeding season – talking long, flipper-in-flipper waddles together, frollicking playfully in the water and generally just having a big ol’ Kontiki singles cruise time of it all.

The pair became inseparable, and even built themselves a nest out of pebbles together, just like a pair of penguins would in the lead up to some raunchy bird-on-bird action and the laying of an egg.

Intrigued, staff gave the fellas a “dummy” egg, to see what would happen, and while that one didn’t hatch – which would 100% have been a miracle even Mr Shelton couldn’t deny – the pair provided it with enough care and attention that they were given a real egg next time round

That one hatched, and Sphen and Magic have gone on to provide foster-parent services to a number of young penguins who otherwise probably wouldn’t have had parents at all.

However, this very real series of events that really did happen and is well documented, is being called out by Shelton, who is once again getting hot under the collar because “fake gay penguins” were being used to “indoctrinate children”.

For what it’s worth, it’s impeccable timing on behalf of Mr Shelton’s outpouring of angst… as any keen political operator will tell you, with only a scant 1,356 days to the next New South Wales state election in early 2027, you’ve gotta sew up the notoriously aggressively heterosexual penguin vote early if you’re to be any chance of a senate seat at all.

 

TO MARKETS

The ASX got off to a banger this morning, launching +0.6% into the air before fizzing out slowly on the way to the lunch break, when – at the time of writing – it was below +0.1% and trending lower still.

Leading the way among the sectors this morning is Energy, which is up 0.95%, with 11 of the 12 $1 billion+ players sandwiched between Viva Energy’s (ASX:VEA) +0.34% and Karoon Energy’s (ASX:KAR) +3.04%.

InfoTech is doing its usual thing of trying to out-do everyone else again, up 0.62% while the Materials sector is also riding the commodities wagon, up 0.46% this morning thanks to a few early-morning thumpers from the big names in digging big holes, including +2.7% showings from Pilbara (ASX:PLS) and Northern Star (ASX:NST).

Consumer Staples is proving to be a stickler this morning, down 0.6% with Industrials (-0.55%) and Health Care (-0.5%) on hand to step in, just in case Staples gets tired of being a huge big bag of pants and decides to lift its game.

Here’s your chance, Staples… dazzle us.

Up the very fancy end of town, the very fancy Cettire (ASX:CTT) – an online purveyor of very fancy things for people who want everyone to think they’re very fancy – is up 6.0% for precisely no very fancy reason at all.

And ageing 70s pop sensation Leo Lithium (ASX:LLL) is up more than 10.5% this morning on news that Tesla boss Elon Musk has been using the 1973 classic Charge Me Up (Put Your Batteries in My Other End, Warren) as a soundtrack to his furious pummeling of a punching bag with Mark Zuckerberg’s face on it all weekend.

 

NOT THE ASX

On Friday, Wall Street finished lower after the S&P 500 closed -0.29% and Nasdaq -0.2% lower, which could have been a lot worse if not for US jobs data that turned the beast around prior to the end of the session.

As Earlybird Eddy Sunarto reported this morning, a softer non-farm payrolls report (+209k jobs gain vs +230k forecast) helped Wall Street’s cause on the day, however analysts at ING reckon it won’t do anything to alter the outlook for another interest rate hike at the 26 July FOMC meeting.

“The payrolls data took some of the heat out of rate hike expectations, but 209k jobs is still a lot and with wages staying elevated and unemployment moving lower it should solidify the case for a July rate hike,” said ING’s note.

In US stock news, Levi Strauss & Co shares fell 8% after the denim maker cut its profit forecast.

Alibaba’s shares on the NYSE gained 8% after Chinese authorities said they will impose a US$984 million fine on Ant Group, an entity owned 33% by Alibaba. Investors seem to be satisfied that the fines have marked the end of a regulatory crackdown that began back in November 2020.

The best Wall Street stock mover was electric vehicles maker Rivian, which rose more than 14% after reporting better than expected vehicle deliveries in the quarter.

In Japan, the Nikkei is down 0.62% this morning, after a gaggle of hooligans were caught on camera showing the entire planet how the world-famous Tokyo Drift is definitely not performed.

 

 

The driver of the white Nissan Silvia – who has been arrested on charges of bringing great shame to the Japanese drifting community – reportedly told police that they had just finished reading the seminal drift culture anime Initial D, and wanted to try it out for themselves.

We’ll be whipping the hat round later to see if we can scare up the funds to bring them out for next year’s Summernats, so our local boys can show ’em how it’s done… just as soon as we’re done laughing ourselves sick.

Meanwhile in China, Shanghai markets are up 0.35% and in Hong Kong the Hang Seng is up 1.3% because there’s simply no room left to move sideways there anymore.

Crude oil prices climbed by almost 3% on Friday to a nine-week high, with WTI trading at US$73.61 a barrel.

“OPEC+ production cuts are expected to tighten the market, driving supply deficits in the second half of 2023, supporting higher oil prices,” said analysts at Morningstar.

Gold prices meanwhile gained around 1%, and it’s trading at US$1,928.21 an ounce.

Bitcoin was down -0.3% in the last 24 hours to US$30,130. I’d love to tell you more, but Rob “Leave a message after the ZZzzzzz” Badman is on holiday – but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for July 10 [intraday]:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

 

In Small Caps news this morning, the clear standout performer is Heavy Minerals (ASX:HVY), which has jumped 154% on news of an updated JORC Mineral Resource from its Port Gregory garnet project – and it’s a belter.

Heavy Minerals is reporting that it’s sitting on 5.9Mt of contained garnet, with 5.4Mt of that in the Measured and Indicated JORC category, a 23% increase on previously released figures.

That equates to 166Mt @ 4.0% Total Heavy Minerals, broken down into 126Mt @ 3.8% THM (Measured Mineral Resource), 20Mt @ 6.5% THM Indicated Mineral Resource and 20Mt @ 2.9% THM in the Inferred Mineral Resource category.

Heavy Minerals says that’s enough garnet to feed the planet’s current requirements for about five years.

Elsewhere, Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BPIV) sector (putting solar tech into building surfaces like glass and other facades) company Clearvue Technologies (ASX:CPV) is up about 20% on no news.

Similarly, Magnum Mining and Exploration (ASX:MGU) is up 19% on no news as well, but it’s been booming since early June when it announced that extensive outcrop sampling campaign of massive magnetite outcrops has been completed at its flagship Buena Vista iron project in Nevada, USA.

As is gaming company Mighty Kingdom (ASX:MKL), which is up 23% despite nothing to tell the ASX since it told us all that Gamestar, which owes MKL a few bob, has promised that a $2.9 million cheque was “on its way”, in mid-June.

And comin’ in hot with actual news, Forrestania Resources (ASX:FRS) is up 14% this morning after revealing that it’s now earned 50% in the 293km2 Hydra greenfields lithium project in James Bay, Canada, forming a JV with TSXV-listed ALX Resources.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for July 10 [intraday]:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

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