Closing Bell: Benchmark ends lower, loses 2.2% for the week. China jitters, I suppose. It's unpleasant to report and I'm not proud

ASX 200 closes about 0.3% lower, down well over 2.2% for the week.
Materials and Consumer discretionary weigh, Healthcare rises.
Small caps led by Oliver’s Real Foods, which has leapt mightily despite having no fresh news.

The Aussie sharemarket has made it three losses straight to end a tough 5 sessions. The benchmark lost 0.3% on Friday to make it a walkback of well over 2.2% for the week.

Despite a punchy few hours of morning play which saw the Healthcare and Utilities Sectors head into the break undefeated, the broader ASX200 was down about 36 points or circa 0.5% at the luncheon interval (there is no break).

Investors remain rattled about China’s glass castle of an economy and its ticking time bomb of a property sector. With Wall Street wavering again overnight, it’d appear we’re not done starting at the shadow of the Federal Reserve either.

The iron ore majors were all down over 1%, but what caught the eye is the exit of fund manager Platinum Asset’s co-founder and CEO Andrew Clifford, reportedly following pressure from his co-cofounder Kerr Neilson who has more shares than Clifford.

Anyway, Platinum is also down about 1%, both outflows caused sans doubt by the after market release last night that Platinum has copped net outflows of circa $911mn last month.

Friday’s ASX sectors:

The ASX Emerging Co’s (XEC) index lost -0.35% on Friday and -1.9% for the week. The ASX Small Ords (XSO) shed -0.2 and -2.2%.

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES

What’s going on with Germany?

And well might you ask, as the EU’s formerly reliable centre of economic growth and manufacturing efficiency saw industrical production slide lower for a third straight month.

Overnight, the euro took a battering – pretty much since I left the EU this has been going on – an 8th straight week of losses against the USD, almost like the fix was in from the beginning. FX traders are apparently responding to an ever deepening disconnect between a German dragged EU economy, regularly copping a dressing down from the central bank boss Christine Lagarde and what’s going in on the states – which seems to be coping well in all weather.

The Euro meanwhile, is now 5% down since the last weeks of July and is a total bargain at US$1.07. It’s merde.

ARM wrestle

Last night was well timed for the soon to be Nasdaq-listed British boyband of tech, Arm Holdings which made the most of its investor roadshow by pumping FY revenue growth of an expected – but not in the bag – 11%… wait for it – to be followed up by a circa 25% improvement in fiscal 2025.

Reports filtering out of a very leaky investor lunch in New York overnight dropped the numbers but didn’t want to put their names to them.

Demand for anything remotely AI, wherein Arm has its hands on some reportedly quality processing and semiconductor chip tech – is the apparent driver.

Owned by Japan’s company crunching SoftBank Group, the Cambridge-based chip maker is looking to deliver what many expect will be the IPO of the year.

On Tuesday, according to an Arm filing with the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) the poms struck a deal with Apple providing it access to Arm’s semiconductor component designs for use in its iPhone and Mac chips.

Arm is expected to go public on the Nasdaq in the coming weeks at a valuation as high as US$52 billion.

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Code	Company	Price	%	Volume	Market Cap
TD1	Tali Digital Limited	0.002	100%	24,000	$3,295,156
ZEU	Zeus Resources Ltd	0.021	62%	16,942,282	$5,970,653
EXT	Excite Technology	0.0075	50%	1,825,087	$5,796,209
ICN	Icon Energy Limited	0.006	50%	3,366,066	$3,072,055
MTH	Mithril Resources	0.0015	50%	40,000	$3,368,804
CRB	Carbine Resources	0.01	43%	465,103	$3,862,164
RMX	Red Mount Min Ltd	0.005	43%	1,044,809	$8,835,229
ODE	Odessa Minerals Ltd	0.014	40%	50,388,505	$9,471,118
MRI	Myrewardsinternation	0.015	36%	7,819,575	$4,692,972
OLI	Oliver'S Real Food	0.023	35%	487,781	$7,492,443
NAE	New Age Exploration	0.008	33%	61,925,815	$8,615,393
WCN	White Cliff Min Ltd	0.009	29%	5,554,096	$8,799,130
ASW	Advanced Share Ltd	0.16	28%	917,502	$24,175,972
ELS	Elsight Ltd	0.485	28%	938,526	$57,121,441
ECT	Env Clean Tech Ltd.	0.0075	25%	35,357,724	$17,085,331
ABE	Ausbondexchange	0.125	25%	91,496	$3,875,310
GTR	Gti Energy Ltd	0.01	25%	19,506,487	$15,582,033
LYN	Lycaonresources	0.285	24%	263,318	$8,951,313
SUH	Southern Hem Min	0.026	24%	2,577,802	$11,063,933
TZL	TZ Limited	0.021	24%	37,380	$4,364,888
LV1	Live Verdure Ltd	0.215	23%	376,260	$15,707,835
AEV	Avenira Limited	0.011	22%	3,601,645	$15,570,065
BDG	Black Dragon Gold	0.034	21%	195,973	$5,618,762
MRR	Minrex Resources Ltd	0.017	21%	8,449,470	$15,188,145
R8R	Regener8Resourcesnl	0.17	21%	5,808	$3,591,875

It wasn’t going to be long before we heard from Errawarra Resources (ASX:ERW) again.

The WA explorer (which has expanded its portfolio from nickel and lithium, to gold and graphite), is up once more, following the company’s impressive annual report, which dropped late Thursday.

The report provides a clear roadmap up front in Executive Chairman Thomas Reddicliffe’s letter to shareholders, which notes:

• The company’s main focus over the past year has been to secure the Andover West tenement in the Pilbara, where it is hunting “compelling nickel targets”…

• … as well as digging into some pretty compelling lithium nearology, too – what with the Azure Minerals (ASX:AZS) lithium success story being pretty much adjacent.

• Further exploration at the gold, nickel, graphite focused Errabiddy project is ongoing.

• Meanwhile, “the company has reviewed its commitment to its foundation projects at Binti Binti and Fraser Range, and is actively seeking to sell or Joint Venture these projects.”

The other day, ERW surged upwards after Errawarra closed a heavily-oversubscribed placement early, receiving commitments for $4.25 million from sophisticated investors to fund and accelerate its exploration.

Friday’s top gainers also include, Advanced Share Registry (ASX:ASW) up 32% while Gregor was watching, after revealing its entered a scheme of arrangement, which will see Automic Enterprise will buy 100% of the company, at $0.165 per share.

ASW closed at $0.125 yesterday, and is sitting right on top of Automic’s target price at lunchtime today. Autmoic Group, BTW, provide accounting services and finance functions to support compliance and ‘deliver efficiency to your business.’

Copper hunter Southern Hemisphere Mining (ASX:SUH) stock surged on Friday. It just so happens, Stockhead has a special report on SUH out just this week, like the legends we are.

Meanhwile, Robert Badman explains what happened here today:

SUH surged first, on the back of, first of all some funding news, and secondly, a substantial resource increase in the company’s flagship Llahuin copper project in Chile.

Regarding the first point, that’s actually news from midweek, but the gist is this…

In relation to a shortfall from the company’s pro-rata non-renounceable entitlement offer in July this year, Southern Hemisphere Mining has received binding commitments for the shortfallen securities, raising additional funds of more than $1.27m.

In total, the company advises it’s now successfully raised the full amount of $2.36m offered under the entitlement offer. And this will help enable the following…

Drilling at the Llahuin project is set to substantially increase the existing resource towards a 25 year-mine life, and this is piquing the interest of copper-hungry majors.

Chile, our special report on SUH this week notes, is the world’s largest copper producer and Southern Hemisphere’s Llahuin currently boasts a very large, open-pittable resource of 169Mt at 0.4% copper equivalent.

Oliver’s Real Food (ASX:OLI), which has wandered somewhat zombie-like to a 35.3% rise on zero news.

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Code	Company	Price	%	Volume	Market Cap
AMA	AMA Group Limited	0.0605	-43%	88,090,387	$113,444,983
AFA	ASF Group Limited	0.051	-37%	2,621	$64,184,200
M3M	M3Mininglimited	0.082	-37%	2,803,948	$6,046,729
MXC	Mgc Pharmaceuticals	0.002	-33%	749,107	$13,283,905
AD1	AD1 Holdings Limited	0.006	-25%	501,226	$6,580,551
CCE	Carnegie Cln Energy	0.0015	-25%	11,485,469	$31,285,147
EDE	Eden Inv Ltd	0.003	-25%	63,917,834	$11,987,881
PVS	Pivotal Systems	0.003	-25%	4,721,723	$3,073,517
XTC	Xantippe Res Ltd	0.0015	-25%	5,888,733	$35,056,011
COY	Coppermoly Limited	0.011	-21%	303,298	$7,421,777
88E	88 Energy Ltd	0.0065	-19%	72,406,940	$165,287,509
SIX	Sprintex Ltd	0.022	-19%	45,000	$8,336,106
BSE	Base Res Limited	0.185	-18%	1,418,065	$265,052,666
SRR	Saramaresourcesltd	0.029	-17%	391,381	$1,968,862
ASP	Aspermont Limited	0.01	-17%	1,739,263	$29,265,164
LML	Lincoln Minerals	0.005	-17%	405,272	$8,524,271
TKL	Traka Resources	0.005	-17%	7,706,900	$5,227,976
ODA	Orcoda Limited	0.26	-15%	283,068	$51,592,906
YRL	Yandal Resources	0.047	-15%	55,443	$8,679,169
DOU	Douugh Limited	0.006	-14%	20,244	$7,398,827
VN8	Vonex Limited.	0.019	-14%	624,794	$7,960,230
EMP	Emperor Energy Ltd	0.013	-13%	145,842	$4,032,937
GHY	Gold Hydrogen	0.24	-13%	331,697	$15,653,831
AUE	Aurumresources	0.105	-13%	35,359	$3,000,000
MGA	Metalsgrovemining	0.105	-13%	23,000	$4,464,060