- ASX Small Cap index pops 1.4% rather nicely
- The top 200 ahead 1%
- AnteoTech and some clever diggers the big winners on Wednesday
The local small cap index is riding a mid-week mining boom with some standout individual performances from names like Culpeo, Riversgold and Galileo, now up 365% since its Palladium strike at ‘Norseman’ on May 11.
Strong leads out of Wall Street overnight have helped, as bargain hunting tech fiends sparked a broad bout of buying which drove the tech-laden Nasdaq almost 3% higher, while the S&P 500 found 2%.
At home, a smaller than expected wages increase for the March quarter disappointed me, a few Aussie workers and maybe one or two closet socialists and while it did weigh a little on bond yields and a very little on the Aussie dollarbuck, it certainly didn’t impede the stock market.
Our bureau of stats (ABS) says the Wage Price Index (WPI) rose 0.7% QoQ and 2.4% YoY, fluffing a consensus of economist estimates from Bloomberg of 0.8% and 2.5%.
I don’t know about you but my WPI for the last decade has been a TFD.
In some positive news of a more schadenfreudian nature, the Brits’ inflation read just dropped and that’s now officially at a 40-year high. Their office of national stats says the CPI spiked some 9 per cent in the year to April, a beat even on the 7 per cent of March. Their problem is largely war and energy and food and war.
I feel better already.
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 | Last | % | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CCE | Carnegie Cln Energy | 0.002 | 100% | 19,101,648 |
| ALT | Analytica Limited | 0.0015 | 50% | 1,492,525 |
| ADO | Anteotech Ltd | 0.13 | 38% | 20,868,044 |
| TD1 | Tali Digital Limited | 0.008 | 33% | 11,357,679 |
| ARC | ARC Funds Limited | 0.6 | 32% | 4,870 |
| DTM | Dart Mining NL | 0.079 | 32% | 913,135 |
| SPN | Sparc Tech Ltd | 0.675 | 30% | 2,891,701 |
| 1AE | Auroraenergymetals | 0.255 | 28% | 9,914,935 |
| LRS | Latin Resources Ltd | 0.14 | 27% | 30,857,816 |
| SHN | Sunshine Gold Ltd | 0.039 | 26% | 948,774 |
| BIO | Biome Australia Ltd | 0.094 | 25% | 586,103 |
| BEZ | Besragoldinc | 0.05 | 25% | 727,966 |
| RGL | Riversgold | 0.051 | 24% | 31,382,973 |
| MLS | Metals Australia | 0.1125 | 24% | 22,236,452 |
| RMI | Resource Mining Corp | 0.086 | 23% | 4,540,609 |
| AL8 | Alderan Resource Ltd | 0.022 | 22% | 201,240 |
| AUQ | Alara Resources Ltd | 0.063 | 21% | 444,395 |
| MRI | Myrewardsinternation | 0.069 | 21% | 1,416,556 |
| PRX | Prodigy Gold NL | 0.023 | 21% | 1,515,969 |
| SHE | Stonehorse Energy Lt | 0.018 | 20% | 1,865,627 |
| LPE | Locality Planning | 0.06 | 20% | 4,815,008 |
| RXH | Rewardle Holding Ltd | 0.012 | 20% | 935,603 |
| SGC | Sacgasco Ltd | 0.024 | 20% | 2,401,355 |
| LAW | Lawfinance Ltd | 0.245 | 20% | 17,500 |
| MM1 | Midasmineralsltd | 0.315 | 19% | 581,431 |
Right. On to some happy-happy joy-joy.
Eddy Sunarto has been tracking Anteotech (ASX:ADO) seeing the Aussie medtech surge as much as 40% in morning trade after a big win for its EuGeni COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test (RAT), which is now registered in Europe.
EuGeni is Aneteotech’s fast solution for rapid point-of-care testing.
The new European registration is for the same core SARS-CoV-2 Ag RAT registered in April of 2021, but now covers multiple use claims. The use claims include combined nose and throat sampling and nasal mid-turbinate sampling, on top of the original nasopharyngeal sampling method.
To establish these new use claims, AnteoTech had completed clinical performance evaluations in the US and the UK that focussed on validating the test’s effectiveness in detecting the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
AND its small and portable, has a lovely benchtop design which makes it convenient for heading in and out of the clinic to the field.
ADO is also currently conducting a clinical trial in Europe, which is evaluating the updated multiple-use claim. Results from this study will enable EuGeni to be included in the EU Common List registration application.
Kinda in the same space, Analytica (ASX:ALT) says it’s locked in patents for its PeriCoach pelvic floor exercise system in Europe and India.
The system tackles Stress Urinary Incontinence which affects one in three women worldwide, usually after the trauma of childbirth wreaks on the pelvic floor muscles.
PeriCoach comprises a device which evaluates activity in pelvic floor muscles, with the new patent adding to protections granted in Australia, China, Japan, the States – and one pending in Brazil.
Over in the resources sector there’s some cracking action.
Riversgold (ASX:RGL) has snapped up another tenement prospective for lithium in the Pilbara which CEO Julian Ford says is a “very important milestone for the advancement of our new lithium discovery objectives at Riversgold.”
“Our initial results at Tambourah have been impressive to date with lithium grades in pegmatite outcrop up to 2% Li2O, and we look forward to accelerating our exploration efforts here with the aim of drilling our key targets as soon as possible,” Ford said.
Like a bat out of Oregon Aurora Energy Metals (1AE)is a newby to the lists and is in the business of finding two of the hottest commodities around, lithium and uranium.
1AE raised $8m at 20c per share in an IPO to explore its ‘Aurora Energy Metals’ project in – wait for it – Oregon, US of A, which has a defined uranium resource and known lithium mineralisation.
The project offers investors two bats with one clean energy rock, managing director Greg Cochran says, but – no – not in those exact words.
“We will look to grow the well-defined, shallow uranium resource hosted in the basement and conduct techno-economic studies, whilst following up the significant lakebed sediment-hosted lithium mineralisation that surrounds and overlies it,” he really said.
The McDermitt Caldera, which hosts the project, is one of the most prospective lithium provinces in the US, Cochran and his team believe.
Galileo Mining (ASX:GAL) is having a delightful run. And as Reuben says investors do love a good discovery story – especially when it is validated by a $1.75m on-market share purchase from major shareholder and living legend Mark Creasy.
The stock, now up 365% since announcing the discovery at ‘Norseman’ on May 11, was threatening the $1/share mark in morning trade Wednesday.
Renowned for his role in the discoveries of the Bronzewing and Jundee gold mines and the Nova nickel mine, billionaire prospector Creasy is a name market watchers follow closely. His 26% stake in Galileo was valued at a cool $38.6 million as of Monday’s close, making it his third biggest investment on publicly available data.
For more on the man, the mission and the mining, go to where Josh Chiat is.
Culpeo Minerals (ASX:CPO). Ah yes. This explorer listed on the ASX September 10 with a couple of porphyry projects in Chile — ‘Las Petacas’ and ‘Quelon’ — and only entered into an agreement to acquire 80% of Lana Corina early March. Today, it announced 13 fresh targets at the historical ‘Lana Corina’ project in Chile, where CPO struck the copper motherlode in its very first drillhole back in March.
The highlight hit includes 200m of visible sulphide copper from 50m to 250m depth and comes from near-surface ‘breccia pipes’ which are part of a vertically extensive copper porphyry system.
These targets, which looks like the recent discovery, have not been previously tested.
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.
| Code | Company | Last | % | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EN1DA | Engage:Bdr Limited | 0.007 | -30% | 1,700,000 |
| GTG | Genetic Technologies | 0.003 | -25% | 3,075,787 |
| ERG | Eneco Refresh Ltd | 0.026 | -24% | 17,106 |
| MPR | Mpower Group Limited | 0.028 | -20% | 1,052,863 |
| VPR | Volt Power Group | 0.002 | -20% | 2,461,900 |
| ANR | Anatara Ls Ltd | 0.07 | -19% | 460,267 |
| CMO | Cosmometalslimited | 0.145 | -17% | 79,348 |
| FXG | Felix Gold Limited | 0.15 | -17% | 65,898 |
| IVT | Inventis Limited | 0.1 | -17% | 75,000 |
| GGX | Gas2Grid Limited | 0.0025 | -17% | 183,333 |
| BMO | Bastion Minerals | 0.145 | -15% | 2,400 |
| AMD | Arrow Minerals | 0.003 | -14% | 3,300,000 |
| ZMM | Zimi Ltd | 0.006 | -14% | 1,096,449 |
| CI1 | Credit Intelligence | 0.13 | -13% | 140,974 |
| HHI | Health House Int Ltd | 0.013 | -13% | 1,678,395 |
| DC2 | Dctwo | 0.062 | -13% | 298,307 |
| AJQ | Armour Energy Ltd | 0.007 | -13% | 3,088,404 |
| DXN | DXN Limited | 0.007 | -13% | 400,000 |
| ESH | Esports Mogul Ltd | 0.0035 | -13% | 3,969,670 |
| RD1 | Registry Direct | 0.014 | -13% | 469,701 |
| TSC | Twenty Seven Co. Ltd | 0.0035 | -13% | 1,614,000 |
| JXT | Jaxstaltd | 0.035 | -13% | 1,200,654 |
| ECG | Ecargo Hldg | 0.015 | -12% | 8,000 |
| GIB | Gibb River Diamonds | 0.054 | -11% | 250,954 |
| SPQ | Superior Resources | 0.031 | -11% | 3,788,125 |
ANNOUNCEMENTS YOU MAY’VE MISSED
Prodigy Gold (ASX:PRX) and IGO Limited (ASX:IGO) have shaken hands on a restructuring of their Lake Mackay joint venture agreement, which will hand Prodigy majority interest in the Gold Tenements while retaining its position in the Base Metal Tenements, pending consents and approvals. In return, Prodigy will be on the hook for the cost of drilling programs on the two sites, with all JV interests frozen for the duration of these programs.
Meanwhile, it’s more sour news for the A2 Milk Company (ASX:A2M) as investors across the ditch line up behind a third class-action lawsuit against the company. The NZ legal action is similar to its two Aussie counterparts filed late last year, alleging the company engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct prior to shedding more than 60% of market value in FY21. A2 vigorously denies any wrongdoing.
Hey. Also. Weebit Nano’s (ASX:WBT) has copped a speeding ticket from the ASX. This is because the Weetbix-sounding semi-conductor firm’s shares jumped by about 25% this morning on nada news.
Here’s what WBT told the ASX this arvo:
Weebit Nano Limited Ltd (WBT or the Company) refers to ASX’s letter of 18 May 2022 in relation to the change in the price of WBT’s securities and the significant increase in the volume of WBT’s securities traded from a close of $2.27 on 17 May 2022 to an intraday high of $2.89 at the time of sending the letter today.
Accordingly, WBT responds to your questions with respect to this particular information, as follows:
1) Is WBT aware of any information concerning it that has not been announced to the market which, if known by some in the market, could explain the recent trading in its securities?
No.
I’ll leave it there. That’s probably the best bit.
TRADING HALTS
Arafura Resources (ASX: ARU) – non-binding memorandum of understanding for an offtake agreement (MoU)
Australian Vanadium (ASX:AVL) – capital raising