• Local markets follow Wall St ‘hopetimism’ lower
  • Small caps smashed, down circa 3%
  • Pot stock CAU delivers ASX first ever pot stock profit

The Benchmark is down 1.95% and the small caps index is down 2.7% after climbing late in the session on Monday all in the wake of a Fed-struck Wall Street’s awful leads for uninspired Asian markets.

I like this expression from Tony Sycamore at City Index:

“The carnage on Wall Street came after the world’s most powerful central banker Fed Chair Jerome Powell, dashed misplaced equity market “hopetimism” of an imminent dovish pivot, noting the Fed would continue to raise rates and keep them higher for longer as it digs in to fight inflation.”

That sums it all up pretty good.

Iron ore futures in both Singapore and Dalian have dipped sharply, leading to losses among all the major local players, while the Nasdaq’s worst session since June has knocked the top off the local Tech Sector with losses now deep into 4% territory.

It wasn’t total doom and gloom – the Aussie retail sector over delivered for the underperforming economy in july with a much stronger than forecast 1.3% rise in nominal retail sales.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports the month on month growth easily eclipsed June’s 0.3% lift and smashed the 0.2% bump markets had expected.

The ABS says the data was driven by spending on clothing and despite consumer confidence wallowing in a pit of its own dastardly misery.

Around the region, Japan’s Nikkei fell 2.6%, South Korea’s Kospi fell 2.25% and the Kosdaq index dropped 2.7%. All mainland China indices were between 0.5% and 1% lower on Monday near the close, Sydney time.

US Futures are all lower, Nasdaq Futures are down 1.3% at 3pm in Sydney.

And finally in some long0-awaited good news for pot stock fans, Cronos Australia (ASX: CAU) has broken the green ceiling on Monday, making the local industry’s first full year profit.

What’s more, the stock is up 5% and shareholders can expect the sector’s first ever dividend.

While not the largest on the bourse this year, the extremely welcome 1.0 cent per ordinary share, fully franked dividend is an exciting development for a sector which – let’s be honest – hasn’t been replete with excitement lately.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

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Up strongly on Monday is Galileo Mining (ASX:GAL), which has struck massive sulphides at its Callisto palladium dig.

GAL says drilling at Callisto palladium discovery has intersected massive sulphide mineralisation including 1.25m of massive sulphides logged within a larger 29.1m zone of disseminated and stringer sulphides.

It’s early days for the current drill program, with only 528m of the proposed 2,000m program complete, but that was enough for investors to get all excited.

Also higher, Dart Mining (ASX:DTM), which has rocketed up 37% probably after Stockhead’s own Barry Fitzgerald absolutely nailed his prediction on Friday. One may partake of Barry’s creepy-Professor X style prediction here,

Hartshead Resources (ASX:HHR)came bursting out of a trading halt late enough on Friday not to annoy the punters. But on Monday its plan to fast-track development of its Anning and Somerville gas fields has received a strong show of investor confidence after receiving a strong show of investors confidence in the preceding oversubscribed $11m placement.

The placement of 400 million new shares at $0.0275 was well backed by a combo of Australian and UK institutional and family office investors with company directors proving that they have skin in the game by subscribing for $500,000 worth of shares.

HHR says it intends to use the proceeds to fund the Shell engineering study, geotechnical survey and fast-track the Front-End Engineering & Design (FEED) stage of the Phase 1 field development in the UK Southern Gas Basin.

“We are very pleased to have received firm commitments to raise $11 million before costs through an oversubscribed placement,” CEO Chris Lewis said.

“Importantly, these funds will be used to further advance the Phase I field development of the Anning and Somerville gas fields, including the recently announced Shell Gas offtake route engineering study, which represents a significant milestone in the advancement of the project.”

HHR says it now intends to explore the merits of a dual listing on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange – given the strong interest shown by UK investors and funds.

Shares on Monday are up almost 20%.

Finally the concussion, HITIQ (ASX:HIQ) has renewed a subscription agreement with the jolly chaps at the English Cricket Board for another two years.

The deal covers the use of HIQ’s CSX concussion technology by more than 1,800 players across 32 ECB and County cricket clubs.

Detailed terms and conditions remain commercially sensitive, but HITIQ revealed that the initial financial impact is not considered material to HITIQ’s overall annual recurring revenues.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

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Sezzle (ASX:SZL) is down 7.7%. It’s a bad day for tech and SZL is a bit of a bad tech weather vane.

And while on the depressed side of the bourse, where life is without apologies, Aussie Broadband (ASX:ABB) is getting smacked after doing some really great things in the last 12 months – including returning to profit in FY22, and with some style, up 118% year-on-year.

The $5.3 million profit is a rather upbeat turnaround from last year’s $4.5 million loss.

EBITDA jumped a record 56% to just shy of $547 million, exceeding guidance for the second straight fiscal.

ABB shares are getting poleaxed, but that won’t bother co-founder and managing director and all round good guy Phillip Britt.

“We have achieved strong growth in revenue, earnings and market share, and are well positioned to achieve our goal of becoming Australia’s fourth largest communications company providing a full suite of solutions across enterprise, wholesale, residential, and government sectors.”

That’s the spirit.

 

WHAT ELSE YOU’VE MISSED ON MONDAY BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BE RELIED ON

Today has been a flurry of FY22 results – some good, some awful, and some entirely mediocre. The good ones were enough to shift share prices enough that you couldn’t have missed them if you tried, ditto with the bad ones… and there’s nothing more mediocre than mediocre news, so there’s not a whole lot worth writing about.

A sliver of good news, though, came from Identitii (ASX:ID8), which announced that its been granted a Singaporean patent for its secure financial information sharing ecosystem the company says “overcomes key limitations with existing technology systems to simplify financial crime compliance.”

The patent joins the one recently granted by the US, covering the same platform and IP, which ID8 says will be beneficial in helping to monetise the development work that’s gone into the product. 

EMVision Medical Imaging (ASX:EMV) has just received a formal letter of offer from the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, verifying that its $5m MMI grant is proceeding.

The MMI (Modern Manufacturing Initiative) grant award is a key element of the Australian Government’s Modern Manufacturing Strategy, which aims to help Australian manufacturers scale-up and compete internationally.

The grant will assist EMVision to establish the initial production of its 1st Gen portable brain scanner product. EM’s 1st Gen is breakthrough device which is light and portable, and is currently under development.

Strickland Metals (ASX:STK) says it has intersected thick new zones of oxide gold mineralisation north of the existing resource at its flagship Millrose gold project in WA’s Yandal greenstone belt.

Notably for the company, results such as 37m grading 1.6 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a down-hole depth of 58m including 9m at 5.6g/t gold from 86m (MRRC228) and 12m at 4.9g/t gold from 64m including 4m at 13.6g/t gold from 68m (MRRC238) have extended mineralisation by about 350m to the north.

New oxide lenses were also intersected above the current JORC Resource of 6Mt at 1.8g/t gold for 346,000oz contained gold.

The drill results neatly demonstrate the potential scale of the Millrose project while infill drilling continues to return consistent gold intersections.

STK is is also waiting on assays from three diamond holes which successfully tested the interpreted ore zone up to 90m down dip from the current Resource and beneath MRDD008 (8.1m at 14.6g/t gold from 215m).

Chief executive officer Andrew Bray said the “impressive” shallow oxide gold results from drilling along strike from the current resource have defined a coherent zone over 350m to the north, with mineralisation remaining entirely open to the north and west.

 

TRADING HALTS

I Synergy Group (ASX:IS3) – I, Capital Raise. 

Pro-Pac Packaging (ASX:PPG) – PPG’s got news about an equity and debt restructuring in the works. 

Cobre (ASX:CBE) – More drilling results are on the way from Cobre’s copper hunt in Botswana.

Blue Star Helium (ASX:BNL) – Blue Star has news from the Sammon Well on the way. 

Horseshoe Metals (ASX:HOR) – More news incoming, this time assay results from Horseshoe Lights Copper Gold Project. 

Tesoro Gold (ASX:TSO) – Wow… everyone’s been busy, by the looks of things – Tesoro Gold’s got material exploration results on the way as well. 

Suvo Strategic Minerals (ASX:SUV) – Likewise, SUV has something to say about its Eneabba Project.

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