• ASX lifts its game 0.32%, buoyed by positive vibes from the goons on Wall Street overnight.
  • Local Health Care stocks found bleeding heavily and rushed to hospital.
  • Golden Mile Resources finds a nickel or two – and around 150% worth of gains as well.

 

It’s not been a very typical day on the ASX for Small Caps today, after the broader market teetered its way, like a drunken debutante in an ill-advised pair borrowed high heels, to a 0.32% rise.

Things would have been a lot better if it weren’t for the Health Care sector, which appears to have suffered a catastrophic left-brain stroke while in the middle of a heart attack, before lapsing into a -4.7% coma.

Specialists say that the sector is “likely to recover, but it’s hard to say precisely when that might occur”, but one of the nurses told me privately that the sector tried to pinch her on the bottom during a sponge bath, so it’s likely to be sooner rather than later.

On the other end of the spectrum, the local Materials sector stepped up to the plate today, delivering an unexpectedly significant 2.5% climb, plus a bonus bag of raw materials to use in the manufacture of today’s Best Sector trophy.

To illustrate my point, allow me to cherrypick two performance outliers and draw a logical equivalence that I know wouldn’t stand up in court or even pass muster at a Year 9 debating competition.

But it’s vaguely representative, and they’re both interesting yarns, so… that’s what you’re getting.

We’ll start with the day’s big loser from Health Care, Advanced Health Intelligence (ASX:AHI), which – truth be told – has been acting super-weird the past couple of days.

AHI is dual-listed, and its US stocks went completely bananas on Friday night (our time) for no apparent reason – and, because of the lag between then and the ASX opening after the King’s Birthday weekend, it wasn’t until yesterday that local shares also took off, jumping 370%.

The ASX hit the brakes, AHI went into a trading halt and then dropped an after-hours announcement that its plans to raise up to $10,000,000 under a convertible note facility had only reached a total of $1,976,000 – but a separate negotiation with Orca Capital, an offshore institutional investor, to bring in $5,000,000 had been successfully completed.

That second, previously unannounced capital raising saw Orca grab 20 million shares at $0.25 apiece – well below yesterday’s closing price of $0.40, which looked a little overcooked.

But it seems investors have decided en masse to take their winnings and run and AHI is down 50% this morning, to $0.20 as a result, still a healthy pop on the $0.083 price before the shenanigans all kicked off.

On the flipside of that coin is today’s Big Winner Golden Mile Resources (ASX:G88), which leapt out of its skin to bank a 166% (or thereabouts) gain after dropping news of “Spectacular Intersections” at its Quicksilver nickel-cobalt project in WA.

Golden Mile reports that its “best ever” intersections include drill hole 23QDD008, which returned 49m at 1.74% nickel (Ni), 0.071% cobalt (Co) from 30m, including:

  • 28m at 2.34% Ni & 0.109% Co from 32m depth, with intercepts up to 4.14% Ni and 0.421% Co; and
  • 5m @ 1.6% Ni & 0.026% Co from 73m depth

Golden Mile’s freshly-minted managing director – he was bumped up into the role just yesterday – Damon Dormer said: “These are spectacular intersections and the highest nickel grade we have ever encountered at Quicksilver.”

“The results indicate that we have a significantly higher-grade zone within the overall Resource with the potential of disseminated nickel mineralisation within the untested primary zone.

“This may provide an opportunity for direct transportation and shipping of high-grade zones of the orebody to provide early cash flow while constructing the beneficiation plant and accelerating project timelines.”

All the rest of the sectors were being very boring, so I’m not going to bother writing about them today, in the hope that they will feel starved for attention and do something exciting tomorrow.

So, in the meantime, here’s the rest of the day’s winners for you to enjoy.

 

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:

WordPress Tables Plugin

 

Today’s Big Winner Golden Mile Resources, which leapt out of its skin to bank a 166% (or thereabouts) gain after… wait, I think I told you this story already, didn’t I?

So, moving on… next best today was Intelligent Monitoring Group (ASX:IMB), which has leapt +71% this morning on news that it’s entered into a binding agreement to acquire all of the shares in Tyco Australia Group for $45 million.

Investors have decided that this is a Good Thing for Intelligent Monitoring, as security monitoring provider Tyco (which trades under the well-known ADT brand in Australia and New Zealand) has a ready-made revenue of around $95m, with $65m of recurring revenue – which makes the $45 million price tag look like a bit of a bargain.

IMB’s price eased a little as the market came off the boil a bit in the afternoon, landing around +67% for the day.

And in third place is IperionX (ASX:IPX), blasting off to gain 52% this morning, on yesterday’s news that the company has inked a deal with US automaker Ford to to supply titanium metal components using its 100% recycled low-carbon titanium metal.

The company has been collaborating to design, test and additively manufacture a series of high-quality titanium components for future production vehicles for Ford’s high-performance and racing division, Ford Performance.

Ford Performance is well known for a leading range of performance cars such as the F150 Raptor, Bronco Raptor, Mustang Mach 1 and the Shelby GT500.

 

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the least best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

WordPress Tables Plugin

 

LAST ORDERS

Mako Gold (ASX:MKG) has announced that its recently launched entitlement offer, under which investors could bag one “loyalty option” for every four shares held, has resulted in a large acceptance rate by shareholders.

The company says that it’s received acceptances for 81,888,658 loyalty options, raising more than $409,000, which will be added to the running total from the placement Mako announced at the start of May, adding up to a roughly $3 million shot in the arm for the company.

There were some leftovers from the loyalty option offer (53,711,379 options), which the company says it is reserving the right to issue within a three month period, as provided for in the prospectus – and notes that the company’s directors have all taken up their full entitlements as well.

Meanwhile, Copper Mountain Mining (ASX:C6C) has explained away a raised eyebrow from the ASX, after it got a Please Explain over a sudden jump in trading volume.

C6C has attributed the rush on its shares to an upcoming acquisition transaction by Hudbay Minerals, under which any holders of C6C CHESS Depositary Interests (CDIs) will receive common shares in the capital of Hudbay.

With the (I assume) rubber stamping of the deal on the verge of being finalised, trading in C6C CDIs will go into voluntary suspension “for a period of approximately three (3) trading days in anticipation of closing of the Transaction”, the company says – pointing to that as the likely cause of a flurry of pre-transaction activity.

And finally for the day, Aerometrex (ASX:AMX) has announced that the company has been awarded a juicy $1.69 million government supply contract, which is obviously great news for AMX.

But here’s where it gets just a teensy bit sinister. The data being provided is only described as “off the shelf”, and the buyer is identified only as “an Australian Federal Government Agency”.

I’m having a mild panic attack over what kind of data it could be, and what terrible new things this “Australian Federal Government Agency” is going to learn about all of us, but especially me.

Is my chequered past about to catch up with me? Will the Feds find out about that time in high school that I found $20 on the floor outside the teacher’s lounge and shouted my mates to a meal at Macca’s instead of handing it in? Or the fact that I drove around in an unregistered car for three years because I was a reckless, idiot teenager?

If I’m suddenly no longer working for Stockhead, that’s probably the reason why – or part of the reason, at least.

 

TRADING HALTS

Jaxsta (ASX:JXT) – The online music info repository has news about a Proposed funding transaction.

Hawthorn Resources (ASX:HAW) – Announcement regarding joint venture agreement on the Mt Bevan project. I wonder who the JV is going to be with… Quick, everyone! To the Mystery Mobile!

Legacy Iron Ore (ASX:LCY) – Announcement regarding joint venture agreement on the Mt Bevan project. Mystery solved! Well done, everyone.

Predictive Discovery (ASX:PDI) – Taking time out to prep a response to an ASX speeding ticket, and supply “an exploration update inclusive of any unannounced assay results as specifically requested by ASX”.

 

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