• ASX 200 pokes about at six month highs
  • Small cap index rises 1%
  • Kogi Iron up 50% before becoming Macro Metals

Not as much Aussie inflation as expected has lifted the ASX 200 from a fairly tedious session to one with enough sparkle to call it a six month intraday special. In a sign risk is making a comeback, the Aussie 10-year bond yields shed 7 basis points to 3.55% and the fun farmers stepped in to buy up some Bitcoin and Ethereum, enthused by the sweet soft breeze of cooler inflation.

Already the economists are rejigging their forecasts with a CPI-lite read balancing the best on the speed and size of future rate rises.

Near 4pm in Sydney, the Japanese Nikkei was o.4% lower, while the Shanghai composite and the Hang Seng were both ahead 0.2% despite, sharp falls in the latest China PMI numbers.

At home, the benchmark index is up 0.x% and the ASX Emerging Companies XEC index was ahead by almost 1%.

Maqro Capital’s head of trading and investments mark Gardner told Stockhead that US equities struggled for direction on their Tuesday trade leading into Jerome Powell’s speech.

“Treasury yields continued to creep marginally higher as the consumer confidence gauge rose to 100.2, a slight beat on economists’ expectations.

“This caused an intraday market selloff as bond traders repriced bond yields, as they wait for more hints on monetary policy tonight,” Gardner added.

Energy stocks found some momentum after a stiff run over chatter OPEC is considering more production cuts at their upcoming meeting next week.

The rot has set in at Apple, which added to its losses overnight on the back of Chinese production hassles. Chinese tech stocks did well, however, as growing social unrest continues to place pressure on Beijing to ease COVID-19 restrictions.

Looking ahead US Futures are… uninspired.

Via Fox News and why not?

“All eyes will be on Powell tonight, as they attempt to pickpocket information on the Federal Reserve’s economic outlook and look for clues on their December rate hike.”

Tonight’s session ahead in the states bodes for a quiet time on the market, traders are likely to fiddle about waiting for the blockbuster warble by The Fed’s Head Hawk Chairman Powell. Mark Gardner says the risk is to the downside as many of the top 20 ASX companies start to look exhausted at 6–12-month highs.

Gardner says materials may be vulnerable after the stimulus spike out of China yesterday.

“Most of these moves faded out into the close and the spike in commodities continued to drop back to unchanged as traders read the fine print of the announcement which still has “targeted lockdowns. We continue to trim portfolios cash to 20-30% cash and are seriously considering a short ETF for the first half of December.”

“Expect some profit-taking for month-end into the close,” Mark added, but by then I’d hung up.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

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Kogi Iron (ASX:KFE), which will be renamed “Macro Metals” is up well over 50% after entering a binding open term sheet for 100% of the Salar Verde lithium brine-clay project in Chile.

A $1.5m placement to institutional and sophisticated investors at 0.5c a share will fund due diligence and ongoing exploration at its existing assets.

The project covers an area of 289km2 in the southern part of the Salar de Llamara in northern Chile, within the so-called South Amercian Lithium Triangle.

Home to global major SQM, Chile is the second top producer of lithium raw materials after Australia, supplying 22% of the world’s lithium units.

Drilling in 2018 hit lithium brines and clays within 50m of surface, with best brine results of 15m at 217ppm Li from 35m and 5m at 117ppm from 35m, and clay hits like 30m at 392ppm from 10m, with numerous holes ending in mineralisation.

“The Salar Verde Lithium Project represents an exciting opportunity for the company in terms of diversification of commodity exposure into an integral part of the electrical storage market,” Kogi non-exec chair  Peter Huljich said on the pivot lithium-wards.

If you really want to know more, and feel like a good chuckle, the author is Josh Chiat.

Moving from brines to hard rock and also ahead by more than 50% on Wednesday, is Pure Resources (ASX:PR1).

Here, Josh tells me, we have some $7 and a half mill of capped gold and nickel exploring over in the Laforge belt in WA.  The stock is a lock after securing the rights to 160km2 of lithium claims in Quebec, Canada.

Covering part of the 70km long Laforge Greenstone Belt, the acquisition has some quality neighbours, located 65km north east of Patriot Battery Metals’ (ASX:PMT) emerging Corvette discovery, one of a number of spodumene deposits identified in Canada’s James Bay region in recent years.

Pure reckons the Laforge belt could be a dead ringer for the La Grande Greenstone Belt, which hosts the Corvette pegmatites currently being drilled by Ken Brinsden-chaired Patriot.

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

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TRADING HALTS

Red Dirt Metals (ASX:RDT) – Capital Raise.

Mithril Resources (ASX:MTH) – Capital Raise.

Cauldron Energy (ASX:CXU) – Capital Raise.

The Market Herald (ASX:TMH) – TMH is shuffling the deck chairs in the boardroom and will have an update on finances soon.

92 Energy (ASX:92N) – Capital Raise.

archTIS (ASX:AR9) – Capital Raise.

Lindian Resources (ASX:LIN) – Capital Raise.

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