Aussie markets opened slightly ahead this morning after man of the moment Anthony Norman Albanese was sworn in as the 31st prime minister and posed for a happy ALP family pic, thus ended 10 years of conservative government.

Throughout the day the local bourse was as indecisive as a Labor Prime Minister (pick one) and by close of trade, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was maybe ahead three points, but not enough to move the dial.

The Emerging Companies (XEC) index, meanwhile fell 0.2%.

Leading the gainers was the materials sector, up 0.86% along with energy which rose 0.39%. Healthcare led the laggards, dropping 0.76%, followed by financials down 0.68% and utilities, which fell 0.6%.

Around the region, the Nikkei 225 Index was up 0.1%, while the Hang Seng fell 1.4% and the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.34% following Friday’s mixed trade on global equity markets.

When US markets open for Monday trade investors will be truly hoping fortunes turn around. The Dow fell 2.9% last week, the eight straight decline and longest losing streak since 1932.

The S&P 400 toppled 3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 3.8% last week, the seventh straight decline and longest losing streaks for both indices since 2001.

Ahead of the open, all three major US indices pointing to a rebound, with the Dow up 0.64%, S&P 500 to rise 0.83% and Nasdaq up 1.03%.

 

TODAY’S BIGGEST SMALL CAP WINNERS

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

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Day One of Albanese has been good to Discovery Alaska (ASX:DAF) which has seen its share price soar ~24% today ~8.1 cents upon more positive news about its Coal Creek lithium prospect.

The company announced further evidence of lithium potential of Coal Creek prospect at the Chultina project in Alaska with confirmation from a handheld SciAps Z-901 laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) analyser (sounds like a power instrument).

Discovery Alaska said its now reviewing historical drill core at Coal Creek and re-analysing core samples with the intention of discovering a lithium resource and establishing a JORC-compliant resource.

 

TODAY’S BIGGEST SMALL CAP LOSERS

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

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ANNOUNCEMENTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

One of only a handful of players in the world developing qubit processor chip technology in the semiconductor industry, Archer Materials Limited (ASX:AXE) has announced it’s been granted a patent on its CQ quantum computing chip (CQ Chip) technology. The patent will allow Archer to hoard its tech better than a dragon on a pile of gold, and joins other market patents granted in a number of other jurisdictions around the world.

Meanwhile, Elsight Limited (ASX: ELS) has informed the market that the early exercise of options, first flagged on April 7, 2022, has dragged a tidy $3.345 million into the company coffers. Elsight plans on funnelling the money into speeding up the commercial roll-out of its “Halo” technology, which recently received a boost after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was cool about the tech riding aboard Airobotic’s Model OPTIMUS1-EX unmanned drones.

Lodestar Minerals (ASX:LSR) has issued an announcement about an exciting development at its Coolgardie West project, where the company says it’s found a 2km long, contiguous Li, Cs, Nb, Rb and Tl soil geochemical anomaly characteristic of highly fractionated pegmatites. We’ve run that through our in-house Translation Bot 9000 (Patent Pending), and it means Lodestar believes it’s onto a promising site for lithium exploration.

And lastly, BIR Financial (ASX:BIR) has revealed that is has settled its beef with ousted Pulse CEO Andrew Braund. Under the agreement reach, Braund is set to pocket 15 million fully paid ordinaryBIR Financial shares. In return, Braund will drop the District Court Proceedings he initiated over his termination from Pulse.

 

Trading Halts

Kairos Minerals Limited (ASX: KAI) – trading halt, pending the announcement of material exploration results

Emyria Limited (ASX: EMD) – trading halt, pending an announcement in regards to the results from its EMD-RX5 Phase I trial.