Closing Bell: ASX suffers biggest one day fall in 16 months, tech sector completely smoked

Ouch. The ASX has closed the third trading day of the year with a melt down of 2.74%.

The Australian sharemarket has suffered its biggest one-day fall in 16 months, since 4 September 2020. The selling has been widespread with every sector recording declines. The #ASX200 lost 207 points or 2.7% to 7,358, giving up all of Tuesday’s 1.95% gain

— CommSec (@CommSec) January 6, 2022

The tech sector continues to spiral out of control, leading the way with a ~6.5% dip due to the release of minutes from the Fed’s December meeting overnight.

This meeting resulted in a decision by policy makers to lift rates sooner than expected and cut its COVID-19 stimulus.

“Almost all participants agreed that it would likely be appropriate to initiate balance sheet runoff at some point after the first increase in the target range for the federal funds rate,” the minutes said.

Afterpay (ASX:APT) got absolutely monstered with a ~10.57% fall, followed by Wisetech Global (ASX:WTC) at ~6.59%, Xero (ASX:XRO) at ~5.70%, and Computershare (ASX:CPU) at ~1.48%.

All 11 sectors have ended the day in the red, despite uranium stocks waking up in the green during early trade after analysts predicted political unrest in Kazakhstan – where around 43% of the world’s uranium comes from — could send uranium prices soaring.

TODAY’S BIGGEST SMALL CAP WINNERS

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

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort.

CODE	COMPANY	PRICE	%	VOLUME
T3D	333D Limited	0.0045	50%	24,106,699
ANL	Amani Gold Ltd	0.0015	50%	9,830,000
WOO	Wooboard Tech Ltd	0.0015	50%	1,200,000
CT1	Constellation Tech	0.008	33%	2,213,738
LRV	Larvottoresources	0.1575	31%	2,762,586
CCE	Carnegie Cln Energy	0.0025	25%	3,420,795
CGB	Cann Global Limited	0.0025	25%	146,666
EVE	EVE Health Group Ltd	0.005	25%	1,327,367
GTG	Genetic Technologies	0.005	25%	2,767,292
SBR	Sabre Resources	0.005	25%	318,509
E25	Element 25 Ltd	1.45	21%	1,221,314
ATH	Alterity Therap Ltd	0.024	20%	26,658,397
AWJ	Auric Mining	0.125	19%	30,000
M8S	M8 Sustainable	0.019	19%	3,149,864
NIM	Nimyresourceslimited	0.29	16%	680,624
EVZ	EVZ Limited	0.15	15%	697
WSR	Westar Resources	0.115	15%	15,000
ENT	Enterprise Metals	0.016	14%	5,937
TMX	Terrain Minerals	0.008	14%	70,000
MQR	Marquee Resource Ltd	0.165	14%	27,030,959
CAQ	CAQ Holdings Ltd	0.025	14%	3,800
LYN	Lycaonresources	0.42	14%	182,226
AMT	Allegra Orthopaedics	0.17	13%	646
BOC	Bougainville Copper	0.355	13%	63,338
AIV	Activex Limited	0.063	13%	80,000

Larvotto Resources (ASX:LRV) climbed with news that plans to kick start lithium and base metal exploration through a soil geochemical sampling project at its Eyre Project will commence as soon as Native Title clearance has been received.

Next in line was manganese miner Element 25 (ASX:25) following an announcement stating it had completed maintenance and engineer improvement works at the site of its Butcherbird Manganese Project and hitting a record daily production result of 1209t of manganese concentrate on January 3.

Biotech company Alterity Therapeutics (ASX:ATH) surged after it revealed the United States Patent and Trademark Office had granted the company a new patent for compounds in relation to neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

And Marquee Resources (ASX:MQR) hit ‘outstanding’ high-grade copper of up to 18.5% and gold of up to 10.4 g/t at its Lone Star Project in Washington State, US where results from the first two diamond holes as part of a 6,000m have been received.

TODAY’S BIGGEST SMALL CAP LOSERS

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort.

CODE	COMPANY	PRICE	%	VOLUME
EN1	Engage:Bdr Limited	0.002	-33%	257,500
ALT	Analytica Limited	0.0015	-25%	250,000
MLS	Metals Australia	0.0015	-25%	5,084,459
KEY	KEY Petroleum	0.002	-20%	125,000
RTG	RTG Mining Inc.	0.11	-19%	543,492
LCT	Living Cell Tech.	0.005	-17%	11,795,796
YPB	YPB Group Ltd	0.0025	-17%	10,500,788
NMT	Neometals Ltd	1.44	-16%	5,946,249
PNX	PNX Metals Limited	0.006	-14%	198,900
OPL	Opyl Limited	0.1	-13%	367,270
CAV	Carnavale Resources	0.007	-13%	3,410,254
DDD	3D Resources Limited	0.0035	-13%	516,219
INL	Innlanz Limited	0.053	-12%	31,184
CTT	Cettire	3.25	-11%	660,615
PNI	Pinnacle Investment	13.95	-11%	607,834
FBR	FBR Ltd	0.04	-11%	3,910,664
XST	Xstate Resources	0.004	-11%	16,372,163
ID8	Identitii Limited	0.105	-11%	522,001
APT	Afterpay Limited	72.07	-10%	1,139,047
RCW	Rightcrowd	0.22	-10%	82,951
SPT	Splitit	0.265	-10%	2,531,206
AFW	Applyflow Limited	0.0045	-10%	6,019,000
MRQ	Mrg Metals Limited	0.009	-10%	1,160,000
PFE	Panteraminerals	0.195	-9%	399,499
SMX	Security Matters	0.245	-9%	10,000

ANNOUNCEMENTS YOU MAY MISSED

Calima Enery (ASX:CE1) kickstarted its initial 2022 oil and gas drilling campaign at the Brooks Project in Alberta, Canada which comprises the multi-stage fracture stimulation of two wells at Brooks (Pisces #1 and #2), and the drilling of an additional Glauconitic well at Brooks (Pisces #3).

Cancer diagnostics tech company Rhythm Biosciences (ASX:RHY) has raised $6.35 million to accelerate commercialisation and entry into the large US and broader international markets. The company says this will support the scaling up of manufacturing capability.

Mining activities have started at Firefinchs’ (ASX:FFX) Morila Super Pit in Mali, where the company has plans to pre-strip waste from the first stage of the site, ahead of ore mining set for Q2, 2022.

Red Mountain Mining (ASX:RMX) confirmed heavy rare earths at its Mt Mansbridge Project in the Eastern Kimberley region of Western Australia. Assays from the Solo prospect have returned hits of up to 5m at 0.316% total rare earth oxide with an average of 66.62% heavy rare earth oxide.

Wide Open Agriculture (ASX:WOA) has signed a distribution agreement with Hong-Kong based Metro Alliance to have Dirty Clean Food’s Oat Milk available for purchase in Hong Kong and Macau. Dirty Clean Food’s Oat Milk is the world’s first oat milk that is carbon neutral and produced with regeneratively farmed oats.