Closing Bell: ASX eyeing the groundskeepers as the market bats through a dead Friday wicket 

• One big bounce and then steady as she goes for the benchmark today
• Market mover Douugh can’t explain its sudden popularity, up 29%
• Wooden spoons all round for Jervois Global after soggy Q2 results

It must be the end of the week, because the ASX had just enough oomph for a super-chunky rebound from an early dive this morning, before things went eerily quiet and lulled investors off to sleep.

Truly – the needle’s barely moved all afternoon, and we heard rumour that one lone watchkeeper has been seen gently poking the market with a twig, imploring it to do something – anything – so we don’t have an Ol’ Yeller situation on our hands.

The benchmark sputtered to a positively geriatric 0.02% flatline.

Bag ‘em and tag ‘em, we’ll try again on Monday.

There were some individual outliers, of course. The lunchtime losers list is pretty much the same, with Domino’s (ASX:DMP), down 4.1% on news of the egregious demolition of Spongebob’s palatial family estate, Ananas sous la Mer.

And Webjet (ASX:WEB) – along with Corporate Travel Management (ASX:CTD) – experienced some unexpected turbulence somewhere over Wagga Wagga, shaking things, down an ear-popping 5.3% and 3.0% respectively.

A late addition to the list was Coronado Global Resources (ASX:CRN), despite a fairly upbeat quarterly report that (at first glance) showed things on the improve.

Group Revenue was $1,033 million, up 9.0% on the previous record of $947 million for the March quarter, and H1 2022 Group Revenue was $1,980 million, up 147% compared to the same period in prior year, page 1 of the report says.

Page 3, however, tells the tale with a lot less spin: production and revenue are down significantly (-18% and -9.9%) against Q1 2022, and Coronado’s price is down nearly 8.0%… Who knew investors would ever read past the headlines?

Top of the Pops in the big leagues was late-bolter bioabsorbable polymer tech-maker PolyNovo (ASX:PNV), which stacked on 7.7% in a late surge as we waited for the bell to ring.

There’s not been anything in the way of real market-sensitive news from PolyNovo, but it has been rising quietly for a few weeks now, since company chair David Williams stuck his hand in his pocket to back the company, putting 250,000 shares in the safe behind the painting of the dogs playing poker that hangs in his office.

We covered the bulk of what’s happened overseas at lunch time, which you can read, along with the thrilling tale of how a pair of Pennsylvania coppers shot the head off a murderous reptile, right here.

But a quick glance at some factory-fresh Asian market data shows the Nikkei has firmed to +0.34%, Hong Kong has softened to 0.17 and Shanghai went bye-bye, off -0.16%.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for July 22 [intraday]:

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

Small Cappers had a pretty good afternoon, with little changed since lunchtime – except for late bloomer SciDev (ASX:SDV) which nerded its way to a 24% gain on no news, and medical research mob 4DMedical, which played sme 5D chess and outwitted gravity and inertia to beef up by 22%.

Early high flyer Douugh (ASX:DOU) was asked to explain its +29% slingshot this morning, but had little in the way of answers and  so was left to keep whistling a happy tune, finishing the session at 21%.

Carrying on this morning’s winning ways were Botala Energy (ASX:BTE) which climbed 24% on relatively thin trade, but still flapping around a bit since its recent lukewarm launch on the ASX.

Hamelin Gold (ASX:HMG) was back to its bouncy ways, this time in a positive direction (+30%) and Farm Pride Foods (ASX:FRM) jumped 21% as it works its way through the ramifications of its recent debt restructuring.

And the warnings of an outbreak of highly contagious sadface went unheeded this afternoon, with Jervois Global’s (ASX:JRV) early-day losing streak getting worse on the back of a super-sour quarterly.

Lunchtime saw Jervois down 16.4%. Closing bell, and it’s at 24% down – at this rate, it will have burrowed all the way to the Earth’s molten iron core by the end of August, which might not be a bad thing, provided it can figure out a way of extracting the resources without collapsing the planet like a punctured footy along the way.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the grimmest performing ASX small cap stocks for July 22 [intraday]:

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

WHAT YOU MAY’VE MISSED (BUT THE ASX DIDN’T)

There’s been plenty of late mail flying around today, but one of the more interesting things has been the latest in the back’n’forth between ASX watchdogs and Bega Cheese (ASX:BGA). A while back, regulators wanted to know who knew what salient facts before and during Bega’s inglorious slump from $4.86 to $3.25 since the end of May.

Bega says that everything’s above board, any market sensitive info was either in the public domain or released to the market in less time than it takes a cheddar to go from “bitey” to “in my belly” and has laid the blame for the form slump on rising dairy prices.

Whoever it was that managed to get the cows to unionise, we hope you can see the damage you’ve wrought – and if the cows ever manage to figure out how doorknobs work, you can bet your bottom babybelle they’ll be seizing the means of production and then we’re all in big trouble.

Another from the Watchdog list was a response from NiCo Resources (ASX:NC1) to an ASX query about stock transactions that hadn’t been reported in the necessary manner – in particular, the on-market purchase of 2,063,792 shares and the on-market disposal of 2,032,860 shares in NiCo by company director Rod Corps.

Turns out it was a simple mistake – Mr Corps was overseas on business and forgot to do some paperwork, which is a reasonable enough excuse, and arguably better than claiming the dog had eaten it.

And lastly, Nex Minerals (ASX:NME) and Metalicity (ASX:MCT) have been back in court – again – in the lead up to  an EGM that’s been scheduled for Monday 25 July, this time over timing of access to proxy forms.

Metalicity wanted them early, Nex said no, the judge agreed with Nex and now Metalicity is on the hook for costs, which Nex says it will most definitely be pursuing. The EGM is due to kick off at 8am AWST on Monday morning. No doubt there’ll be something to report on the outcome of that once we’re done enjoying our weekend.

TRADING HALTS

Australian Unity Office Fund (ASX:AOF) – Unity’s nearly ready to talk about the proposal from Aliro Group to acquire all the issued units in AOF for $2.45 cash per pop.

Galena Mining (ASX:G1A) – Galena needs time to put a clarification together for its announcement yesterday of how things are going at its Abra lead-silver project in WA.