• ASX 200 closes with -1.8% loss
  • Small cap index down -1.2%
  • Up way more than 100% is Norfolk Minerals, the real NFL

 

Everyone in this part of the world seems pretty upset by the US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell – more so than the 75 basis points his people got out front of over night – when he trotted his-self out and told the press there’ll be more of the same hikes ahead, calling talk of easing inflation just a little premature for this Fed Chair’s liking.

US Futures indices are edging higher closer to the Wall Street open after last night’s late session sell-off, inspired in the end not by The Fed Reserve’s latest interest rate hike but when Powell stepped up afterwards to kill the dream of a pivot, a pause or some kind of dream rate cut coming in the near-term to save us all.

The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were between 0.25% and and 0.33% higher at 4pm in Sydney.

Also stateside this arvo, just out of interest, Bloomberg is saying “Twitter insiders” are of the mind that new Chief Twit Elon Musk has an axe sharpened for the heads of some 3700 Twitter employees, representing about half of the entire workforce.

It’s Week One of Elon running things and Elon is doing all sorts of abrupt thinking, even floating the idea of a premium for identity authentication for Twitter account holders, now, Bloomberg says, Mr Musk is expected to require employees to get their butts back into the big head Twitter offices.

According to Bloomers, top advisors were gunning to meet Elon to get down to brass tacks on the future headcount.

After being loaded with his new acquisition for $44 billion last week, the Tesla boss is in dire need of  better margins – so culling deadwood, squishing operating costs and toying with new ways to make money are all apparently on the table.

Closer to home we’re still in that Fed funk – in Hong Kong the Hang Seng is down almost 3%%, leading losses around the Asia-Pacific.

On the ASX 200 Resources, Materials and the Mining sectors are all down circa 2.5%. Comms is the only sector in the green.

The benchmark has lost 1.8% and the XEC is down 1.2%.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

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Getting stock specific, a2 Milk Co (ASX:A2M) is dining out on the access – however temporary – it’s been given to the lucrative US infant formula market. A2M says it’ll be flogging its a2 Platinum brand as the states continues to struggle with ensuring there’s enough to go round following a contamination scare.

The small cap of the hour is undoubtedly Norfolk Minerals (ASX:NFL) which has just soared – as Gregor says – after drilling a hole that has copper in it.

The company says that visual logging of core from hole 22RRD001 at EL20/2020 drilled to 318.0m depth identified:

  • Native copper is observed in discrete zones from 58.5m to 145.40m downhole comprised of disseminated to blebby copper (1-3%) hosted in altered magnetic basalt and within silica-carbonate veins.
  • Strong magnetite, potassium and hematite alteration zones associated with silica-carbonate veins (containing native copper) identified from 90.0m to 147.15m (main basalt/sediments contact).
  • Chalcopyrite (copper-iron-sulphide) is also observed at 86.50m along a fracture surface.
  • Intercalated basalt and sediments (brecciated with flattened clasts) containing dense potassium and epidote altered silica veins with disseminated sulphides (mainly pyrite) from 175.90m to 192.20m downhole.
  • Dense pyrite veins within altered sediments from 233.70m-235.5m, 279.75m-284.60m and 302.80m-305.0m downhole.

 

Elsewhere, HitIQ (ASX:HIQ) is up strongly as well. This time in the wake of two new agreements that will see its tech used to help with head injury and concussion assessment in senior levels of sport.

Yesterday, HIQ announced a two-year deal with England’s Premier League, which will see the company’s CSX Concussion Assessment Technology integrated into the League’s existing concussion management systems.

Then this morning, HIQ revealed another deal, this time with the Western Australian Football Commission, for its HITIQ Nexus instrumented mouthguards to be used to quantify and improve the understanding of the head impact forces sustained by players.

American West (ASX:AW1) – oh yes, we’re back watching the ~$23.7m market cap explorer – which is heading higher again after hitting high-grade copper at the Storm Project in Canada.

New significant intersections include 19m at 2.08% copper from 58m, including 2m at 15.98% copper from 70m as well as 10m at 2.36% copper from 53m and 7m at 1.08% copper from 79m.

A high volume of near-surface high-grade copper at the 2750N Zone has also been confirmed with mineralisation open to the west along a 1km prospective strike length.

Mosaic Brands (ASX:MOZ) is up in the wake of a solid 64% uptick in sales for FY23, as consumers get back into the swing of going to the shops to buy stuff post-Covid.

And Intelligent Monitoring Group (ASX:IMB) is trading higher after the security-focused firm revealed that it’s well-placed to further grow its business following its acquisition of Mammoth earlier this year.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

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Bravura Solutions (ASX:BVS) is faced with the task of restructuring the business in a very big way, which will require “enhancing the existing technology stack to unlock the existing microservices strategy, drive higher resale multiples on technology development and reduce single customer efforts.”

It’s not welcome news to shareholders. Bravura trading 52% lower.

 

TRADING HALTS

Sipa Resources (ASX:SRI) – Capital raise.

Cobalt Blue Holdings (ASX:COB) – Material fundraise.

Southern Hemisphere Mining (ASX:SUH) – Capital raise.

Novatti (ASX:NOV) – Novatti is, quite prudently, waiting for an announcement from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority about its application for a restricted banking licence.

Demetallica (ASX:DRM) – There’s news incoming about a “potential corporate transaction” involving the company.

AIC Mines(ASX:A1M) – hold on a sec… A1M also has news incoming about a “potential corporate transaction involving the company”. Those two are at it again…

Invictus Energy (ASX:IVZ) – Invictus is prepping a response to a price query.

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