• The ASX 200 has had its worst day in roughly a month with a 1.29 percentage dip 
  • The sectors were a shade of spilt claret, with Utilities and Real Estate leading losses
  • Standout small caps: BCAL Diagnostics and American West Metals

 

Local trading couldn’t go back to back after yesterday’s bright day, unfortunately, with the ASX 200 registering its crappest day in about four weeks.

And it’s not great news for the Aussie dollar, which slid below 66 US cents, after data showed manufacturing activity in the US slowed more than expected in July.

Yesterday’s RBA pause partying is well and truly over now, with empties and ciggie butts everywhere and a semi-naked drunk bloke who probably isn’t the departing Philip Lowe in stained Y-fronts in the corner.

On closer inspection, it might be Stiffler, who doesn’t know what the ASX, the RBA, or Australia is. But he was down for it anyway.

Why the sudden turnaround? Because it’s the ASX, and as you well know, it’s frequently one big fickle tease. But there’s a clearer reason than that.

And it has to do with the bourse copy trading Wall Street once again. As Gregor mentioned at lunch, “the United States has had its credit rating downgraded from ‘AAA’ to ‘a bit crap’ by Fitch Ratings.”

Fitch, who we think might’ve gone to high school with Stiffler (or was that Finch?), said in a note: “The rating downgrade of the United States reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions.”

Meanwhile, US treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has described the Fitch downgrade as “arbitrary” and “outdated”. Words that some might suggest could also apply to h… no, nothing.

 

TO MARKETS

Our advanced technical analysis learnings allow us to ascertain that the ASX 200 formed a perfect “Land Just Before Green, Bounce Off Rock and Careen Disappointingly into Water Trap” formation on the charts.

Zooming into the sectors… and it’s a red, tomatoey, soupy mush with nothing much to write home about at all if you’re a fan of generalising.

What can we say? Utilities had a shocker, with Real Estate, Financials and Industrials not faring much better. IT and Health Care did their level best to find any semblance of speck of silver lining.

Source: marketindex.com.au

Now for a few specific standouts in the mid-larger end of Bourse City, before we take you to ASX Small Caps Funky Town, further below…

Winning:

• FINEOS (ASX:FCL): +11.6% on no fresh news for the insurance-tech play.

• Deep Yellow (ASX:DYL): +6.4% on nothing much to report regarding the energy stock.

Not Winning:

• MAAS Group Holdings (ASX:MGH): -7.5% after a notification today of a securities buy-back (about 2.172m today).

• Weebit Nano (ASX:WBT): -5.7% on no fresh news today for the tech stock. Yesterday, though, as reported by Eddy:

“The chips maker fell despite saying that its Resistive Random-Access Memory (ReRAM) can stand heat up to 125 degrees Celsius.

“This is the temperature specified for automotive grade 1 Non-Volatile Memories (NVMs).

“The achievement demonstrates the suitability of Weebit ReRAM for use in microcontrollers and other automotive components, as well as high-temperature industrial and IoT applications.”

 

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
DXN DXN Limited 0.0015 50% 4,057,419 $1,721,315
MEB Medibio Limited 0.0015 50% 932,329 $5,150,594
BDX Bcaldiagnostics 0.115 44% 6,543,048 $10,887,577
AHN Athena Resources 0.008 33% 4,614,715 $6,422,805
YPB YPB Group Ltd 0.004 33% 660,090 $2,230,384
AW1 Americanwestmetals 0.25 25% 46,326,070 $69,069,676
AJQ Armour Energy Ltd 0.0025 25% 8,056 $9,842,684
THR Thor Energy PLC 0.005 25% 200,000 $5,837,166
NYR Nyrada Inc. 0.041 24% 134,641 $5,148,287
DCN Dacian Gold Ltd 0.115 22% 611,839 $114,379,288
VKA Viking Mines Ltd 0.011 22% 6,780 $9,227,326
NME Nex Metals Explorat 0.017 21% 32,000 $4,935,455
DC2 Dctwo 0.023 21% 150,000 $2,483,606
ODY Odyssey Gold Ltd 0.03 20% 455,439 $19,138,445
BNO Bionomics Limited 0.012 20% 6,309,909 $14,687,354
CYQ Cycliq Group Ltd 0.006 20% 5,987 $1,737,583
HLX Helix Resources 0.006 20% 18,922,067 $11,615,729
PRX Prodigy Gold NL 0.006 20% 536,751 $8,755,539
TIG Tigers Realm Coal 0.006 20% 1,577,857 $65,333,512
TMX Terrain Minerals 0.006 20% 610,000 $5,415,997
E33 East 33 Limited. 0.033 18% 63,090 $14,534,484
SYM Symbio Holdings Ltd 2.74 17% 847,584 $199,505,791
GBZ GBM Rsources Ltd 0.021 17% 334,642 $11,087,301
SQX SQX Resources Ltd 0.14 17% 613,053 $3,000,000
INP Incentiapay Ltd 0.007 17% 1 $7,590,382
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• Health-tech stock BCAL Diagnostics (ASX:BDX) started and finished well today. We’ve been talking about it all day, in fact, but here’s the choicest summary, from our very own non-fungible Eddy Sunarto:

“BCAL Diagnostics has announced breakthrough results and major steps towards commercialisation of its breast cancer diagnostic test.

“A clinical study the company sponsored with Precion Inc. in North Carolina has achieved an impressive sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 85.5%.

“What this means is that the BCAL breast cancer test should readily be capable of being replicated not only in BCAL’s dedicated laboratory in Australia but, more importantly, will enable blood samples to be analysed (using the BCAL test) in commercial laboratories throughout the world.”

• American West Metals (ASX:AW1) is another one we can’t stay away from today.

The $92m-capped copper hunter has revealed a “major discovery” at the Storm project in Canada.

Diamond drilling of a large gravity target has intersected thick intervals of copper sulphides, reports the company.

The two diamond drill holes were punched in 680m apart — the continuity of the mineralised horizon and the size of the gravity anomaly,>5km long and up to 1km wide, suggests that drilling has potentially identified a very large copper deposit, it says.

Assays are pending, and you can read more about it here, in this special report.

 

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
EEL Enrg Elements Ltd 0.003 -40% 15,993,270 $5,046,171
VTM Victory Metals Ltd 0.245 -38% 2,189,343 $31,522,301
XTC Xantippe Res Ltd 0.001 -33% 3,256,420 $17,220,150
AIS Aeris Resources Ltd 0.27 -29% 4,819,630 $262,559,326
AXP AXP Energy Ltd 0.0015 -25% 71,724 $11,649,361
MTL Mantle Minerals Ltd 0.0015 -25% 2,356,792 $12,294,892
TMB Tambourahmetals 0.2625 -23% 1,382,510 $14,371,530
ACW Actinogen Medical 0.029 -22% 6,702,414 $67,201,330
NNG Nexion Group 0.011 -21% 1,422,185 $2,832,310
KCC Kincora Copper 0.053 -21% 1,523,825 $8,060,252
DDT DataDot Technology 0.004 -20% 190,005 $6,054,764
ICN Icon Energy Limited 0.004 -20% 2,000,189 $3,840,068
PKO Peako Limited 0.008 -20% 455,232 $4,707,315
SHP South Harz Potash 0.031 -18% 1,949,002 $22,800,472
GLE GLG Corp Ltd 0.165 -18% 14,089 $14,820,000
GFN Gefen Int 0.005 -17% 82,980 $769,679
MXC Mgc Pharmaceuticals 0.0025 -17% 6,821,820 $11,677,079
SRI Sipa Resources Ltd 0.021 -16% 3,274 $5,703,953
ICG Inca Minerals Ltd 0.029 -15% 432,378 $16,490,339
NOX Noxopharm Limited 0.036 -14% 379,682 $12,273,994
AUR Auris Minerals Ltd 0.012 -14% 53,348 $6,672,763
AVM Advance Metals Ltd 0.006 -14% 267,433 $4,119,911
CPT Cipherpoint Limited 0.006 -14% 14,800 $8,114,692
LML Lincoln Minerals 0.006 -14% 6,304,332 $9,944,983
M2M Mtmalcolmminesnl 0.024 -14% 60,001 $2,233,490
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Aeris Resources (ASX:AIS) is down a good (well, bad) 29% today on some FY24 guidance announcing.

The copper-gold producer and explorer has, according to its Exec Chairman Andre Labuschagne (yep, Marnus’s old man), “made the tough but appropriate decision to place the Jaguar Operation onto care and maintenance, with operations ceasing in September.”

Straight batting it further, Labuschagne added:

“Between the operational challenges, lower zinc price and cost inflation it became obvious that the best value for our shareholders was to pause production at Jaguar.

“We firmly believe this decision provides the greatest opportunity for shareholders to realise value from Jaguar over the medium term.”

 

Meanwhile, a reprise here from this morning’s 10 at 10. But it still applies…

Victory Metals (ASX:VTM) released a maiden resource of 250Mt at a grade of 520 parts per million (ppm) rare earths – for 130,000t contained rare earths – at the North Stanmore project in WA.

Biotech Actinogen Medical (ASX:ACW) is down today, despite the company announcing a non-renounceable rights issue offer to raise roughly $10 million from eligible shareholders. 

It will raise $10m at 2.5c per share – a substantial discount to the last closing price.

Lastly, lithium explorer Tambourah Metals (ASX:TMB) will raise $3.7m at 23.5c per share – a 30.9% discount to the last closing price of TMB shares and a 13.8% discount to 10-day VWAP.

 

LAST ORDERS

• Anax Metals (ASX:ANX), has announced today it’s received “firm commitments” to raise $1.1 million via a placement to institutional, professional and sophisticated investors.

And that’s to support the exploration and development at the Whim Creek Copper-Zinc JV project in the Pilbara, which Anax plans to make a first mover base metals producer.

You can read yesterday’s special report on that for a fair bit more.

 

• Global X, a major ETF (exchange traded fund) provider (eg. Global X Battery Tech and Lithium ETF (ASX:ACDC)) is expanding its Australian team with the appointment of Nicholas Vedelago as Senior Business Development Manager in Queensland.

Vedelago will be responsible for building relationships and positive outcomes for clients.

What dose that mean in slightly less marketing speak? It means he’ll aim to get across the benefits of Global X’s various ETFs that focus on a range of sectors, including commodities, income/finance, core, and digital assets. (We did say slightly less.)

Vedelago joins a distribution team that has more than doubled in the last 12 months, according to the company.

Among other things, Global X Chief Executive Officer for Australia, Evan Metcalf, had this to say:

“We’re confident that Nicholas’ deep industry knowledge and experience will prove instrumental in helping us to continue to deliver exceptional service for stakeholders as we expand our brand footprint across Australia.”

Vedelago brings over a decade of experience in the wealth management and banking industry, including at Colonial First State.

Global X also recently appointed Nathan Lui as Regional Manager – Southern in the company’s Melbourne office. He joined the business from Betashares.

 

TRADING HALTS

Mesoblast (ASX:MSB): Pending an announcement regarding a US Food and Drug Administration’s review of the company’s Biologics License Application resubmission for remestemcel-L in the treatment of children with steroid-refractory acute graft versus host disease.

ChemX Materials (ASX:CMX) A pause in trading that allows ChemX to “manage its continuous disclosure obligations pending the release of an announcement regarding a strategic funding package and management change”.

 

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