Local stocks ummed and ahhed, before finishing higher on Friday in a relatively cruisy session following some more fireworks on Wall Street overnight.

Social media giant Meta got crushed after flagging its first ever decline in user growth, before Amazon came to the party with a big after-hours rally after upping the cost of its Prime subscription.

Also upping things was the RBA, which upped its forecast for trimmed-mean inflation to 2.75% for year-end 2022, with a June peak of 3.25%.

The bank’s closely watched Statement on Monetary Policy also included further declines in unemployment, but more modest gains for wage growth.

The ASX opened higher then fell into the red, before getting back on the horse in afternoon trade.

Microcaps outpaced the big end of town as the Emerging Companies index rose by ~0.5%.

TODAY’S BIGGEST SMALL CAP WINNERS

(Stocks highlighted in yellow rose after making announcements during the trading day).

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It was all systems go for Carnaby Resources (ASX:CNB), which along with its joint venture partner Discovex Resources (ASX:DCX) said it’s confirmed a serious copper hit at the ‘Nil Desperandum’ prospect, part of the ‘Greater Duchess’ copper-gold project in Queensland.

The pair’s latest drill program pulled up additional copper mineralisation with a similar ‘true width’ to another drill program in December. Here’s why that’s important.

Among stocks with news, both companies easily led the market on Thursday with gains of +40%.

Mobile communications equipment company Mobilicom (ASX:MOB) jumped by around 20% on no news, while $75m rare earths player Frontier Resources (ASX:FNT) rose strongly after announcing the appointment of mining industry veteran David Frances as non-executive chairman.

TODAY’S BIGGEST SMALL CAP LOSERS

(Stocks highlighted in yellow fell after making announcements during the trading day).

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ANNOUNCEMENTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

Mining heavy equipment rental company Emeco Holdings (ASX:EHL)has formally appointed Thao Pham as chief financial officer, after acting in the role since September 2021.

Chairman Peter Richards said Thao had been instrumental in Emeco’s debt restructuring in FY21 and would continue to provide strong financial leadership to the company.

New Zealand Oil & Gas subsidiary Cue Energy Resources (ASX:CUE) has announced that its oil production well in Mahato PSC, Indonesia has been successfully drilled.

The well is producing an average of ~600 barrels or oil per day. Cue has a 12.5% interest in the Mahato PSC. New Zealand Oil & Gas has a 50.4% interest in Cue.

And BBX Minerals (ASX:BBX) has announced its in the final stages of assaying its first completed RC drill hole in its 2017 program at Três Estados in Brazil using an alternative nickel extraction method.

Although BBX has been working on the method for more than a year and achieved consistent results, the assay process was temporarily put on hold due to challenges in achieving the required furnace temperatures of 1450° to 1500°.

However, the issue has been resolved through a furnace upgrade that is continuously able to achieve temperatures of 1600°.

TRADING HALTS

The following stocks went into halts on Friday and are expected out in the coming days.

Balkan Mining & Minerals (ASX:BMM) — acquisition
Nimy Resources (ASX:NIM) — exploration update (Mons nickel project)
PlaySide Studios (ASX:PLY) — Beans Web 3.0 NFT launch

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