• The ASX 200 and XEC both down more than 1%
  • It was tech and mining’s fault, and that was probably China’s fault
  • Despite volatility big rises among small names 

After some strong gains to close out last week’s upside surprises, both the resources and tech sectors are back in the bad books on Monday.

While no single sector could be said to have carried their weight with any confidence, dignity or assuredness – save for the blessed by war names in the energy space – tech and commodity stocks stand in special disgrace after such a promising end to last week.

As this one has said ad nauseum, it’s going to be one miserable run of a week, full of hope and despair under the unforgiving stiletto heel of Madame Volatility – with the all-consuming US CPI read mid-week, a bit of jobs data on Thursday and the confidence-sapping confidence measurements from NAB and Westpac tomorrow.

Then there’s the bogeyman of a potentially over-cooked serving of unreliable bollocks which could be the final Chinese GDP read ahead of the Communist Party’s inculcation of President Xi Jinping into the Forever Man of China.

What they will offer up as a number that can be both acceptable, believable and inspiring – and doesn’t in any way mock the self-mutilation of zero-Covid as an actual practice and not a theory. (I mean theoretically, I dig Communism!)

Also weighing on everyone in China – zero-Covid hasn’t worked again. China reports its GDP numbers on Friday.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for July 8 [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume
99L 99 Loyalty Ltd. 0.035 59% 122,682
SIH Sihayo Gold Limited 0.003 50% 2,574,074
AUN Aurumin 0.155 35% 2,456,058
AFW Applyflow Limited 0.002 33% 2,177,461
BKG Booktopia Group 0.32 33% 250,230
WYX Western Yilgarn NL 0.16 33% 65,934
C1X Cosmosexploration 0.165 32% 33
DAL Dalaroometalsltd 0.14 27% 105,593
ERW Errawarra Resources 0.195 26% 73,157
KWR Kingwest Resources 0.074 25% 1,520,418
GGX Gas2Grid Limited 0.0025 25% 399
GME GME Resources Ltd 0.092 24% 117,660
OLL Openlearning 0.036 24% 537,631
CNQ Clean Teq Water 0.5 20% 84,649
LSA Lachlan Star Ltd 0.018 20% 2,592,228
SMI Santana Minerals Ltd 0.75 20% 353,659
AGH Althea Group 0.096 20% 1,976,363
ARE Argonaut Resources 0.003 20% 2,584,530
CTO Citigold Corp Ltd 0.006 20% 795,000
GMN Gold Mountain Ltd 0.006 20% 1,659
MTB Mount Burgess Mining 0.006 20% 35,000
C6C Copper Mountain 2.35 18% 6,944
PFT Pure Foods Tas Ltd 0.24 17% 5,424
PCL Pancontinental Energ 0.007 17% 21,367,850
GCX GCX Metals Limited 0.065 16% 117,053
Wordpress Table Plugin

Up 20% is Cosmos Exploration (ASX: C1X), literally off the ground at Byro East, with the WA-NSW-based gold, copper and nickel explorer making its maiden Airborne Electromagnetic survey (AEM) at the 100% owned Ni-Cu-PGE Project.

The RareX (ASX:REE) spinoff, C1X says the milestone means the greenfields focused team is entering the final phase of target generation work ticking every box – from soil sampling, AMAG/AMRAD and Gravity Surveys – all completed this year, before breaking ground on the highly-prospective project.

C1X Executive Chairman Jeremy Robinson told Stockhead of much anticipation within the Cosmos team, with not much doubt among them of the top notch potential out at the Byro East prospect.

“This is an exciting time for Cosmos and the Byro East Project,” Robinson said.

“If we are successful in delineating AEM targets coincident with the other anomalies then we will undoubtedly have some first-class Ni-Cu-PGE sulphide drill targets to test in an underexplored terrain, we should know very soon.”

Still among the diggerers – Kingwest Resources (ASX:KWR) is on the up and up after saying its hit 5.0m @ 4.8 g/t from 113.3m in KGD004 included 2.3m @ 9.4g/t Au intercept at its Sir Laurence Discovery at Lake Goongarrie, WA.

Kingwest is an explorer focused primarily on gold exploration with ties as well to the historic Menzies gold fields, 120km north of Kalgoorlie.  The Menzies Project contains some of the highest-grade historic production in the Eastern Goldfields with the five underground mines producing between 16g/t and 32g/t Au over their respective life of mine for a total of 650,000 oz @ 22.5g/t.

Kingwest to the tune of a 36% price spike since the announcement went live and the company came out of its trading halt.

Also knocking things out of the park today were Copper Mountain Mining (ASX:C6C), up a curious 31% on no clear news and bugger-all volume, Errawarra Resources (ASX:ERW) with a similarly odd-looking 25% lurch and Santana Minerals (ASX:SMI).

Santana, at least, has some solid news to explain its 24% leap, after it announced a significant mineral resource estimate (MRE) update from the 100% owned Bendigo-Ophir Project, a 6-fold increase in RAS inferred resources that brings the company’s global inferred gold resources to the magical 2Moz mark.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for July 8 [intraday]:

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

Security Description Last % Volume
LDX Lumos Diagnostics 0.057 -65% 18,466,943
HXL Hexima 0.014 -46% 23,915,701
ANL Amani Gold Ltd 0.001 -33% 500,000
EML EML Payments Ltd 0.975 -24% 27,898,585
PGY Pilot Energy Ltd 0.0165 -20% 4,809,348
ESR Estrella Res Ltd 0.018 -18% 6,041,828
BML Boab Metals Ltd 0.18 -18% 321,591
LRV Larvottoresources 0.185 -18% 347,956
SIX Sprintex Ltd 0.057 -17% 162,460
DUB Dubber Corp Ltd 0.785 -17% 1,704,967
1ST 1St Group Ltd 0.005 -17% 169,635
GLV Global Oil & Gas 0.0025 -17% 693,456
EVR Ev Resources Ltd 0.027 -16% 4,339,550
DC2 Dctwo 0.051 -15% 63,107
XRG Xreality Group Ltd 0.036 -14% 643,355
POW Protean Energy Ltd 0.006 -14% 386,962
SZL Sezzle Inc. 0.405 -14% 505,539
CLG Close Loop 0.38 -14% 145,085
MXO Motio Ltd 0.045 -13% 165,873
BBX BBX Minerals Ltd 0.1 -13% 339,396
BCA Black Canyon Limited 0.2 -13% 13,055
SHO Sportshero Ltd 0.02 -13% 1,332,670
DCC Digitalx Limited 0.034 -13% 576,207
FTL Firetail Resources 0.205 -13% 45,814
CLE Cyclone Metals 0.0035 -13% 250,000
Wordpress Table Plugin

 

Ye gads!

Eddy Sunarto has had the unpleasure of tracking the run of diagnostics maker Lumos Diagnostics (ASX:LDX) which assumed the position after saying that its device submission for FebriDX has been rejected by the US FDA.

According to Lumos, the FDA has expressed concerns regarding the risk that false negative viral infection test results could lead to missed opportunities to treat patients, and contribute to the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Lumos said this decision was unexpected, considering that FebriDx had previously received regulatory registrations in the UK, Europe, Canada, UAE, Brazil and Australia.

“Clearly this was not the outcome that the company was seeking, and this decision from the FDA is a significant disappointment for Lumos,” said CEO, Doug Ward.

Also just terrible is EML Payments (ASX:EML) not yet a small cap, but giving it a real crack. EML was the benchmark’s standout muuffin on Monday.

Gaining a bit last week only to give it all back and the some  – hitting a seven year low to a six-year low – on the news CEO Tom Cregan has jumped ship

Finally and perhaps unfairly, Novonix (ASX:NVX) also gave back some 12% after the brokers at Morgans’ cast doubt on the viability of its anode business.

 

WHAT YOU MAY’VE MISSED BECAUSE SOMETIMES MONDAYS ARE TRICKSY

Costa Group (ASX:CGC) sought to turn the firehose on the fire sale happening around its share price this morning, by sending the market a memo which said… not a whole, actually. The gist of it is basically this: Things are going about as well as the company thought they would be, although things are worse than they were before the pandemic, and the results we’re basing this all on are unaudited – but, there will be news in August, so if you could all just be cool until then, that’d be greeeat, thanks.

Propell (ASX:PHL) has revealed that its entered into a Convertible Note Deed with a special purpose vehicle arranged by Reach Markets, to raise $2.8 million. Reach Markets has already has received $2.3m in commitments to date and will continue to accept commitments from sophisticated and professional investors up to the $2.8m CNF limit.

The CNF sets out a Conversion Price of 80% of the 30-day VWAP, within a Conversion Price cap of $0.07 and a floor of $0.03, calculated upon issue of a conversion notice, an interest rate of 10% per annum and a 30 month term to maturity – by our watch, you’ve got until $500,000 Zulu Time to get your orders in.

And lastly, the press office at Cassius Mining (ASX:CMD) has been in busy-bee mode today, with a flurry of releases coming from the usually-quiet operation. First out was a set of Phase 1 core results from its Soalara Limestone asset in SW Madagascar, which look great with ~73% of all assays show an average of 97.02% wt CaCO3 – well into the “high purity” zone.

On the heels of that came news that Cassius is trying on some new lithium shoes after acquiring four contiguous prospecting licences in central Tanzania. The licences are located about 40km north of the capital city of Dodoma, and the company says the time’s right because of the ongoing worldwide interest in battery metals.

That announcement was followed by news that Cassius is on the hunt for some capital to fund both of these announcements, with the company seeking gross proceeds of $1.372 million, because despite how we would all love for it to cost nothing to dig stuff out of the ground to sell it for buckets of money, it ain’t.

TRADING HALTS

Magnetic Resources NL (ASX:MAU) – Capital Raising, because all the cool kids are doing it.

Nagambie Resources (ASX:NAG) – Capital Raising, because it saw how much fun Magnetic Resources was having.

Tombola Gold (ASX:TBA) – Tombola’s going shopping, because it did its Capital Raising last month, before it was cool.