CLOSING BELL: It's a scary end to the week as ASX suffers worst hit in five months

Aussie bourse has worst day since November 3 with S&P ASX 200 down 2.28%
Even darling lithium stocks are down on declining prices in China
Magnum Mining & Exploration soars 60% on positive metallurgical test work

So it’s Friday and the powers that be have roped me into writing Closing Bell on what has been the worst day on the Aussie bourse since November 3 with the S&P ASX 200 breaking February’s low of 7193.4. It’s a depressing way to end the week.

My colleague Eddy has the dismal performance covered in Large Caps as the ASX followed Wall Street’s terribly misguided lead as weak US jobs data sparking recession fears last night.

Initial jobless claims in the US rose from 190,000 to 211,000 for the week, while the Challenger job cut report showed 77,770 jobs were lost in February.

Over here at Closing Bell we can take perhaps some reassurance that the S&P ASX emerging companies index (ASX:XEC) is faring better than the big end of town.

By close of trade just after 4pm AEDT the XEC was down 1.41% for the day. It was a sea of red across the sectors today except for an isolated green island of utilities, which was up 0.61%.

Leading the laggards was energy, down 3.36%, followed by materials, falling 3.13% and financials, dropping 2.78% and following the lead of US where bank stocks fell the most overnight.

And even star lithium stocks were mostly down today due to declining prices in China. Lithium prices have slipped for the assessment period between February 22 and March 8 with Benchmark Minerals Intelligence noting that its Lithium Price Index had dived 6.2%, with lithium carbonate prices down 6.6% to US$58,721/t and spodumene concentrate falling 10.8% to US$5,350/t.

Twitter was alive with #ASX banter today — some too profane for me to feel comfortable re-publishing.

But we’ve raked through the litter to find at least one with a bit of optimism.

There is no sun without rain, Good times will come…

— Richard Xu (@Richard0tennis0) March 10, 2023

How zen.

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
MGU	Magnum Mining & Exp	0.024	60%	24515616	10573177
MEB	Medibio Limited	0.0015	50%	1406544	4150593.79
XST	Xstate Resources	0.0015	50%	2585000	3215181.65
MBK	Metal Bank Ltd	0.029	38%	490073	5806195.92
WOO	Wooboard Tech Ltd	0.011	38%	3419332	1839638.82
SMN	Structural Monitor	0.46	30%	522590	47633767.2
BAT	Battery Minerals Ltd	0.0045	29%	5298476	10273348.2
EMU	EMU NL	0.0025	25%	8234000	2471808.42
IEC	Intra Energy Corp	0.005	25%	2200288	2823126.34
RMX	Red Mount Min Ltd	0.005	25%	50000	9087404.15
BOT	Botanix Pharma Ltd	0.1	22%	12285786	97373447.6
PKD	Parkd Ltd	0.023	21%	334269	1934548.33
GWR	GWR Group Ltd	0.076	21%	781775	20236649.3
1CG	One Click Group Ltd	0.012	20%	1086947	6140708.99
NES	Nelson Resources	0.006	20%	165008	2942971.64
COD	Coda Minerals Ltd	0.305	20%	320187	36158426.8
PPY	Papyrus Australia	0.037	19%	91125	14727538.2
SW1	Swift Networks Group	0.013	18%	10000	6520763.45
ADY	Admiralty Resources.	0.007	17%	799243	7821474.92
CAV	Carnavale Resources	0.0035	17%	25000	8200655.18
CTN	Catalina Resources	0.007	17%	2651253	7430921.35
VAR	Variscan Mines Ltd	0.022	16%	430000	5067908.46
ATP	Atlas Pearls Ltd	0.03	15%	505438	11124665.7
IMB	Intelligent Monitor	0.12	14%	12090	13723531
ABE	Ausbondexchange	0.3075	14%	2037	10463337.8

Leading the winners and up 60% on a day when the market needed a good news story is Magnum Mining & Exploration (ASX:MGU) which has announced positive results from metallurgical test work on ore from its Buena Vista Green Pig Iron Project in Nevada, USA.

MGU said that the testing confirms a +68% Fe product can be produced, and that due to the nature of the ore the previously-designed production plant will only require minimal changes to be operational.

Additionally, ore hardness testing has indicated that production at the plant can be achieved with a much lower power requirement than the company’s peers.

Some further good news came from GWR Group (ASX:GWR), which climbed 21% today after receiving two hefty cheques in the mail totalling $1,512,000.

The cheques are for just two months’ worth of a minimum ~$52 million worth of royalties GWR is set to receive from Gold Valley Iron Ore over the next 10 years.

GWR should receive $756,000 a month until the earlier of such time as Gold Valley has shipped or otherwise sold 3,000,000 tonnes of iron ore from the C4 deposit on or after January 3, 2023, or a total of 36 such monthly payments have been made.

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:

Code	Company	Price	%	Volume	Market Cap
TTA	TTA Holdings Ltd	0.017	-26%	50000	3160738.43
ARE	Argonaut Resources	0.0015	-25%	3803000	12723742.6
CCE	Carnegie Cln Energy	0.0015	-25%	1056810	31285147.4
A11	Atlantic Lithium	0.505	-22%	3288567	393732079
PYR	Payright Limited	0.028	-20%	75000	7331751.91
GMN	Gold Mountain Ltd	0.004	-20%	330154	9849663.07
BNO	Bionomics Limited	0.035	-19%	2717594	63155623.2
ASQ	Australian Silica	0.043	-17%	253534	14646339.6
DES	Desoto Resources	0.125	-17%	343000	8250225
MHC	Manhattan Corp Ltd	0.005	-17%	10416000	10527968.5
NCR	Nucoal Resources Ltd	0.005	-17%	440880	4611674.12
BMM	Balkanminingandmin	0.305	-16%	140826	16341785.1
SPX	Spenda Limited	0.011	-15%	3709536	42464029.9
EMS	Eastern Metals	0.061	-15%	196948	2812637.74
5GG	Pentanet	0.14	-15%	1050045	48808767.6
FIJ	Fiji Kava Limited	0.006	-14%	1820523	2551355.23
OXX	Octanex Ltd	0.006	-14%	70000	1812843.8
EIQ	Echoiq Ltd	0.125	-14%	28625	66162322
CPM	Coopermetalslimited	0.225	-13%	46183	10684700.3
ADC	Acdc Metals Ltd	0.13	-13%	75036	7012125
DXN	DXN Limited	0.0035	-13%	285000	6885259.34
RLC	Reedy Lagoon Corp.	0.007	-13%	1273692	4533756.81
TAS	Tasman Resources Ltd	0.007	-13%	2265956	5369555.4
LRV	Larvottoresources	0.15	-12%	583816	11433302.7
KRM	Kingsrose Mining Ltd	0.06	-12%	1184977	51171803.3

LAST ORDERS

PSC Insurance Group (ASX:PSI) has announced that it has finalised the acquisition of Ensurance UK, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of ASX-listed Ensurance (ASX:ENA) until PSI came along and gobbled it all up.

The acquisition saw PSI cough up $8.2 million, 75% in cash and 25% in PSI shares, which will be held in escrow for a period of 12 months.

While that was getting done, PSI also entered into binding transaction documents for purchase of 100% of London-based insurance brokers Turner Rawlinson & Company.

That deal, which is still subject to regulatory approval with the Financial Conduct Authority but will most likely get rubber stamped, will cost PSI £4,500,000 (around 8.2 million of our puny Wombat Dollars) deliverable in three stages.

That will see PSI fork over 70% of the purchase price (£3.15 million) upon completion in the form of £2.7 million in cash and £0.45 million worth of fully paid ordinary PSI shares, with two further payments due 12 and 24 months later.

Those two final cash payments (worth 15% each) are pencilled in at £675,000, with a variable tied into the contract that will see the value of each payment either rise or fall with the adjustment based on the difference between revenue of that year vs the revenue of the prior year.

Meanwhile, Aldoro Resources (ASX:ARN) is crowing about the fact that it has finished drilling “the best drillholes to date at Narndee”, which – now that I read it – sounds a lot dirtier than I think it’s meant to be.

I think it means they’re the best drillholes that the company’s ever had at the site, because they’ve delivered “thick sections of disseminated sulphides with which are undergoing submission for expedited analytical testing”.

This latest round of 3 drillholes brings the total to 7 diamond holes for 2,949m for the current phase of exploration, and the company says that a total of 264m of visually prospective core over 3 holes is currently undergoing analysis at Intertek Genalysis.

TRADING HALTS

Miramar Resources (ASX:M2R) – Capital Raising.

Jade Gas (ASX:JGH) – Capital Raising.

C29 Metals (ASX:C29) – Exploration results from Pocitos 7, which sounds like a distant planet, but sadly isn’t.

FBR (ASX:FBR) – Capital Raising.

Polymetals Resources (ASX:POL) – Time required to respond to an ASX speeding ticket, plus there’s a material acquisition in the works.

Incannex Healthcare (ASX:IHL) – Material update regarding the company’s psychedelic program. I hope they’re going with velvet… so lovely and tactile and I think I might have misunderstood what “material update” means.