• ASX benchmark ends 0.6% ahead
  • Peregrine’s gold rush slows, but still up more than 85% for the day
  • The UK is looking awesome, if you’re a fan of recessions

The ASX has had a pretty stable afternoon today, after the ASX 200 rose to a 0.5% gain at lunchtime and then wobbled its way towards the weekend on unsteady legs, like a wee new-born foal.

Looking at market sectors and the news hasn’t changed, but the numbers did a little – in essence, everything that was up this morning is a little higher, and everything that was down this more has sunk a little lower.

Materials (+1.56%) kept its momentum from this morning, no doubt helped along by an astonishing >100% moonshot from Peregrine after it started shouting from the rooftops of its gold find of a lifetime – a gold vein, at surface, which hand-held drilling has revealed is thick with visible gold.

Meanwhile, The Consumers appear to have settled their differences to move in lock-step, with Discretionary (+1.17%) slightly ahead of Staples (+1.11%), with the Health sector snuggled up between them (+1.14%).

The sorriest sector of them all today was Energy, which would be deader than doggy-doo if it was asked to power its own iron lung this arvo, down a comparatively bruising -1.63%.

All of this happened off the back of a mixed lead-in from Wall Street overnight, as the S&P 500 finished flat, the Dow fell 0.26% and tech-heavy Nasdaq rose by 0.41%.

The US is facing its troubles head-on, by cheerfully ignoring the deepest yield curve inversion since the early 2000s. The S&P 500 index has now rebounded over 13% from the June lows. The Nasdaq is also up by more than 12% since a month ago.

The Bank of England, however, has mashed the 50 basis points panic button, ushering in the steepest interest rate hike since 199,  when Take That released Back for Good and then disappeared for 9 glorious years.

The rate hike takes the UK cash rate to 1.75% amid BOE’s dire warnings that the UK might enter its longest recession since the financial crisis of 2008-09, saying the British economy is set to shrink for five consecutive quarters beginning in Q4 this year.

There’s heaps more info to digest as the day winds to a close, so have a look at these great stories so you’re all the way across things before you forget it all over the weekend.

We’re about to cover Small Caps news, but for what’s been happening in Large Caps, Medium-Quick Eddy has you covered with all the happenings in the nosebleed seats.

Meanwhile, Stockhead’s very own newly-minted expert on Feline AIDS has a round up of the week in general, which is always an awesome read. Thanks a bunch Christian, and we hope your cat’s feeling better soon.

Josh Chiat has unexpectedly survived his annual pilgrimage to Diggers, and brings us his wrap of what the Ground Breakers are up to, while The Fabulous Nadine McGrath been on the blower with Scott Power for the skinny on health.

Emma Davies scoured the World of Tech to deliver a super-cool read, including the approval for a genuine flying car to go to market in the US, and  Jess Cummins has compiled a look at resources.

But, it’s time for us to get comfy on the beanbag, throw on a Phish record and take a look through the Stockhead Cash Kaleidoscope™to see who’s won the entire stock market today?

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for August 5 [intraday]:

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

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It’s pretty clear who’s taking home the silverware today – Peregrine Gold (ASX:PGD) hit a soul-crushingly massive spike that saw its share price rise faster than a fart in a bath, blasting through a 112% gain between breakfast and lunch before settling into a more sedate, but still freakin’ massive 76.19%.

It all went bananas for PGD when the company released photos of an enormous vein of gold-bearing quartz-ironstone breccia, sitting at surface with clearly visible gold peppered through it, and hand-held drill core samples that look like tubes of solid shiny stuff.

Peregrine’s price peaked at $0.92, 22 cents higher than its previous all-time high set in mid-January this year – and there will no doubt be a few sore heads in the PGD office on Monday, because that’s some party-prompting gains right there.

A late bolter into the winning circle this afternoon was infrastructure and environmental services provider Cardno (ASX:CDD), which somewhat inexplicably stacked on a 75% gain between lunch and close – there’s a story in there, which I’ve missed because Friday’s are hellish, but we’ll bring you the goss once we’ve had a chance to ring some people over the weekend.

The market greeted newcomer Summit Minerals (ASX:SUM) like a new kid in the playground, shunning it because it looks different, leaving the company down 25% to $0.15 from its $0.20 debut, earning them the unenviable slot at the top of today’s loser list.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the grimmest performing ASX small cap stocks forAugust 5 [intraday]:

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

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WHAT YOU MAY’VE MISSED

DXN (ASX:DXN) called a trading halt early this morning, before announcing that the whole shebang ot being sold to Flow2Edge Australia for approximately $26 million in cash – lock, stock and barrel – subject to completion adjustments.

The proceeds of the sale are to be distributed to shareholders, which DXN estimates will work out to between $0.011 and $0.013 per share.

And that is pretty much the only market-sensitive announcement worth covering for the arvo, aside from a couple of lonely little trading halts… so here they are.

 

TRADING HALTS

Cooper Metals (ASX:CPM) – Cooper’s been shopping… and also it’s a capital raise.

Bryah Resources (ASX:BYH) – Capital raise.

That’s us for the week. Have a safe weekend, and we’ll talk at you again on Monday.

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