Closing Bell: Flat, tepid, listless and inert… but enough about Tabcorp, how did them markets go?

• Emerging markets index closes 0.6% lower
• ASX200 down 0.3%
• TAH is one of us now

The Emerging Companies (XEC) index is tracking lower on Tuesday, down 0.6%. The ASX200 (XJO) has ended the session 0.3% lower.

All fell flat, but for a few banks and some REITs.

US markets showed a good set of lungs overnight, powering into the close around 2% higher. That positivity’s been largely lost in translation across regional markets.

The Hang Seng is down well over 1.5%, The Nikkei is 0.9% lower.

Overnight the killer investment banks UBS and JPMorgan Chase slashed their outlooks China GDP after the CCP’s madly committed and painfully prolonged virus lockdowns which have all but suffocated supply, destroyed local demand and whacked manufacturing.

UBS took the top level off its 2022 GDP growth forecast to 3.0 per cent from 4.2 per cent while JPMorgan trimmed its forecast to 3.7 per cent from 4.3 per cent.

“The lingering restrictions and lack of clarity on an exit strategy from the current Covid policy will likely dampen corporate and consumer confidence and hinder the release of pent-up demand,” UBS economists including Tao Wang wrote in a research.

Shanghai’s certainly been a bleak place to live of late with millions of locals hit by weeks of lockdowns.

On local markets, US equity firms wish to sound out Pushpay (ASX:PPA), and Tabcorp (ASX:TAH) has just joined the small caps.

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.

Emma Davies says Income Asset Management Group (ASX:IAM) is worth watching, after securing a mandate to provide execution services for $160 million in bond holdings for a large Not-For-Profit organisation.

The group says this increases its assets under administration by 24% to over $800 million.

Basically the Not-For Profit sector represents a huge profit opportunity CEO Jon Lechte said with apparently no sense of irony.

“IAM believes the Not-For Profit sector represents a significant opportunity for IAM going forward,” he said. “There are many Not-For-Profits self-managing significant amounts of fixed income assets, and our depth of experience in deposits and fixed income, positions us well to provide specialist support to the managers of this money.” Nice one.

Ragusa Minerals (ASX: RAS) is up about 30% today on no clean headlines.

It means the northern explorer is now up well over 50% since announcing a lithium acquisition on Monday. The 570sqkm of ground in the ‘Litchfield’ pegmatite belt in the Territory complements an acquisition from back in Middle March.

RAS says it intends to start exploration works to target outcropping pegmatite rocks (main source of lithium) identified from prior exploration, to develop a more comprehensive exploration program.

“The company has secured extremely strategic and highly sought-after lithium prospective tenements in the centre of a well-renowned lithium district,” says RAS chair Jerko Zuvela, who is also MD at advanced lithium play Argosy Minerals (ASX:AGY).

TODAY’S BIGGEST SMALL CAP LOSERS

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

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

Tabcorp Holdings (ASX:TAH) is splitting the bets on its lucrative Lotteries and Keno business into The Lottery Corporation (ASX:TLC), which raked in massive EBITDA of $611m in FY21.

Down some 85%, now TAH is worth about a dollar. And she’s all alone. Locked in here with all us other small caps (laughs evilly) mwahh hahhahhaha.

ANNOUNCEMENTS YOU MAY’VE MISSED

Wide Open Agriculture (ASX:WOA) says its Dirty Clean Food brand has secured a new, exclusive two-year distribution agreement with DKSH to
distribute its carbon neutral oat milk in Taiwan

DKSH is a leading Market Expansion Services provider operating in 36 markets and generating net sales of CHF 11.1 billion in 2021.

WOA says the deal covers all four fab flavours of Dirty Clean Food oat milk – Original, Barista, Chocolate, and Coffee – with initial sales expected by July 2022.

Greenstone Resources (ASX:GSR) is no-doubt whistling happy tunes and doing a soft-shoe shuffle in the dirt, after turning up multiple high-grade drill intersections at Burbanks North in WA.

The results hail from Greenstone’s current 6,500 metre drill program, and the tally’s are looking healthier than Albo’s, including 4.95 metres @ 30.46g/t Au from 292.1 metres with a high of 1.30 metres @ 97.28g/t Au from 292.1 metres, and 6.60 metres @ 9.85g/t Au from 395.9 metres peaking at 2.00 metres @ 29.09g/t Au from 400.5 metres.

Further afield, Rafaella Resources Limited (ASX:RFR) is continuing its charge into the Canadian battery metals business, securing a chunk of maple-syrupy goodness from right alongside its existing Midrim and Laforce PGM-Ni-Cu projects in Quebec.

Rafaella has signed a binding agreement with Chase Mining Corporation Limited to bring the Alotta and Lorraine PGM-Ni-Cu projects into the fold, for what seems a remarkably low price of A$100,000 cash and A$500,000 in Rafaella shares.

And our last little tidbit for the day comes from Ausmon Resources Limited (ASX:AOA) which says it’s celebrating the results from ALS laboratory of the field-based exploration completed in March 2022 at EL 8747 Stirling Vale and EL 8745 Kanbarra.

The significant results include Cu 1.75%, Zn 9,990ppm and Pb 210ppm from a malachite-stained metasediment within a small prospecting pit, and two other separate findings that feature highest cobalt at 203ppm and 121ppm respectively, associated with elevated zinc to 250ppm. Happy days.

TRADING HALTS

Pushpay Holdings (NZSX:PPH, ASX:PPH) –  PPH advises it “has received unsolicited, non-binding and conditional expressions of interest or approaches from third parties looking to acquire the Company”

Chalice Mining Limited (ASX:CHN) – capital raising

Moho Resources (ASX:MOH) – capital raising

Newfield Resources (ASX: NWF) – results of the sale of the first diamonds from its Tondo Diamond Project