• ASX 200 benchmark climbs 0.65% despite a sour lead-in from Wall Street and Europe.
  • Real Estate sector banks solid wins after shopping centres put on a big day. 
  • Forrestania Resources hits 162% on thick pegmatite news, but the ASX has asked for more info.

 

It wasn’t looking so hot pre-market, but the day’s turned out to be a lot better than a lot of folks dared dream, after the benchmark rose above the Futures Index this morning to get as high a 0.6% round midday.

Things eased a little the longer Tuesday droned on, but a late surge saw the ASX 200 close out the session on a +0.65% gain for the day.

Outside of the market, news that PwC has sold off its government consulting arm to international fix-it Allegro Funds for a single, measly dollar is still on everyone’s lips, with questions now looming on whether the Australian government will be cool with the deal going ahead.

Whether it does or not, it’s a pretty shrewd move by PwC to try to save the jobs of around 100 partners and 1,000 staff, or roughly 10% of the existing firm – which translates to about a quarter of a billion dollars in business per annum.

It’s a massively reduced price for the business, and a huge loss for PwC… but rumour has it that the company knows a thing or two about tax law, so should be able to write it off as a deduction.

The other news of that day was Medibank not-so-Private (ASX:MPL) copped a $250 million rolled up newspaper on the snout over the massive data breach the company recently endured.

The Aussie financial regulator APRA has put the quarter-billion capital retention requirement on Medibank, which is facing at least three separate class action lawsuits filed on behalf of affected customers against the company over the hack.

MPL says that it will remain “well capitalised with unallocated capital remaining at June 30 2022 levels, which was $148 million”, but the news shook investors and Medibank Private slumped more than 4.0% today.

 

TO MARKETS

The bulk of the gains for the broader market today came from the big players in Real Estate (+2.0%), with retail space giants faring rather well, including Charter Hall (ASX:CQE) which put on +2.5%, while Stockland (ASX:SGP) added 1.75% and Westfield operators Scentre Group (ASX:SCG) stacked on an impressive +4.0%.

The rest of the day’s gains came via the Materials sector (+1.0%) – which I’ll get to shortly – and Financials (+0.7%) after the big banks hoovered up more gains, including the CBA (ASX:CBA) on +0.7% through to Big Four winner Westpac (ASX:WBC), which is 1.9% higher for the session.

Lagging behind were the Telcos on -0.5% for the day, while local tech stocks bore the brunt of the US sell-off overnight that saw the likes of Meta and Nvidia down at least 3.0%, and Tesla shedding 6.0% thanks to a Chinese-driven downgrade from Goldman Sachs.

The award for the biggest win, however, has come (of course) from the Small Caps, and surprise, surprise… it’s a funky little lithium play, with news of some lovely, fat peggies.

 

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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Top of the Stocks today is Forrestania Resources (ASX:FRS) after it issued a release at 8:20am to crow about hitting a lot (like, a lot) of potentially lithium-bearing pegmatite in 13 of 14 drill holes at the Calypso prospect, part of the Forrestania project in WA.

The thickest intercept was 63m, the company says, adding that assays are due in about weeks – and that was enough to have FRS up as high as +180%, before the ASX pulled on the handbrake just before 11:00am with the needle on +163%.

At 12:35pm, FRS went into a trading halt, as the company’s been asked to provide a supplementary information to its release this morning – which it managed to sneak in just before the market closed.

Punters were not impressed by the update, paring gains to a still impressive ~90% for the day.

More on that story in Last Orders, down below.

In a more reliable second-place position for Small Caps, Health Care player Inoviq (ASX:IIQ), up 46% after revealing that its SubB2M/CA15-3 breast cancer test detects all stages of breast cancer with excellent accuracy (87%), sensitivity (81%) and specificity (93%).

Inoviq, a developer of next-generation exosome solutions and precision diagnostics, says that an independent clinical validation study of its SubB2M/CA15-3 blood test has produced really strong results, which “support the commercial potential of our simple, cost-effective test for screening and monitoring of breast cancer”.

And in third place, recently-revived and re-listed Lincoln Minerals (ASX:LML) is up 27% on news that it has drilled into broad zones of shallow, high-grade graphite alongside the existing 1.85Mt @ 9.8% Koppio resource, part of the Kookaburra Gully project in South Australia.

New results include a highlight 29m @ 12.65% TGC (total graphitic carbon) from 60m, including 13m @ 18.24% TGC from 69m.

It’s a welcome return to the land of the living for Lincoln, which was MIA from the ASX for quite some time, and only made a recent return to the fold at the start of this month after a will-it-or-won’t-it acquisition saga co-starring Quantum Graphite (ASX:QGL), which remains unresolved.

QGL is in a trading halt right now, but that’s reportedly due to upcoming results from  “further thermal testing on samples of Uley Graphite at higher temperatures”, and nothing to do with Lincoln, apparently.

Weird move of the day goes to internet dating mob Love Group (ASX:LVE), which is up 48.6% on no news other than BNP Parabis – which at last count held something like $4.34 trillion in assets – spent $43 buying another 528 Love Group shares last week.

No, I don’t know why, either…

 

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

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LAST ORDERS

In case you missed all the headlines, Forrestania Resources (ASX:FRS) put out a show-stopper this morning, claiming preliminary results including potentially lithium-bearing pegmatite in 13 of 14 drill holes at the Calypso prospect, part of the Forrestania project in WA.

The thickest intercept was 63m, which is BFD – with the company adding that assays are due in about 6 weeks – and that was enough to have FRS up as high as +163%.

But… there was a hitch, and the ASX yanked the emergency brake a few hours later, before FRS requested a halt to allow it to issue a revised announcement that included more information.

The reason I’m bringing it up here is because it’s not the first time that something like this has happened for Forrestania in recent months… it’s the fourth.

On June 8, the company dropped an announcement about hitting pegmatites at its Eastern Goldfields tenements, which was revised on June 9.

And on May 16, the company’s announcement that it would acquire those same Eastern Goldfields tenements required an amendment three days later on May 19.

And on February 13, news that the company had completed drilling at the Forrestania project required an amendment that same day.

Make of that what you will.

Meanwhile, Sydney-based clinical-stage biotech company Immutep (ASX:IMM) has landed a third US patent, after its submission entitled “Combined Preparations for the Treatment of Cancer or Infection” was granted by the United States Patent Office.

The claims of the new patent build on the protection provided by the two previously granted patents from December 2020 and March 2021, and are directed to methods of treating cancer by administering Immutep‘s lead active immunotherapy candidate eftilagimod alpha (known as “efti” to its friends and family) and a PD-1 pathway inhibitor, specifically BMS-936559, durvalumab, atezolizumab or avelumab, which I am assured are actually words.

“We continue to build our patent estate around lead candidate efti, which is a unique biomolecule and shows great promise in being able to ultimately help diverse sets of cancer patients, including those with more complex needs,” Immutep CEO Marc Voigt said.

“Here we add another key US patent which is closely aligned with our clinical development Pipeline,” Voigt continued. “These key patents support ongoing investment and allow us to confidently push forward across all of our business functions, including clinical, manufacturing, and business development.”

 

TRADING HALTS

Polymetals Resources (ASX:POL) – Capital raising by way of share placement.

Tinybeans Group (ASX:TNY) –  Accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer.

Hot Chili (ASX:HCH) – Costa Fuego copper-gold project Scoping Study results

Jade Gas Holdings (ASX:JGH) – Material announcement, and possibly a tummy ache after all the tiny beans and chili. Poor girl.

PointsBet (ASX:PBH) – Material transaction, after the Swans 30.19 (204) beat West Coast 5.4 (34) on the weekend making everyone’s multi worth $9 trillion.

Cavalier Resources (ASX:CVR) – Exploration results… not sure where from, but.

Forrestania Resources (ASX:FRS) – Incomplete data on this morning’s announcement.

True North Copper (ASX:TNC) – Maiden ore reserve statement for the Great Australia Mine, part of its 100% owned Cloncurry Project in Queensland.

 

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