• ASX smacked after Wall Street sell-off sparked a red day around the world.
  • ALL sectors lower on Friday. Yep… all 11 of them.
  • Small caps led by Spacetalk and Alto Metals

 

The local benchmark index is wallowing back under 8,000 points, late on Friday after walking away from a fresh record high on Thursday.

At 3.30pm in Sydney, the S&P/ASX200 was down 172 points, or 2.1% to 7,942.60.

 

Via ASX

 

Stocks fell after US equities burned during a heated sell-off on Wall Street overnight.

Suddenly the talk of recession muddies the waters even as the US Fed looks set to break into a lower-rate cycle next month.

There’s losses all over the ‘hood on Friday. China and Korean markets are hurting, but in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 tanked more than 5% before lunchtime.

In commodities: copper was flat, iron ore crashed 2.4% and gold rose to circa $2,450 per ounce on Friday, approaching record high territory, driven by recent weak US economic data, which renewed hopes of US rate cuts.

In local stock movements, the ‘Big 4’ banks are all suffering. The iron ore majors are awful while discretionary and other consumer stocks are being whacked, too. Wesfarmers (ASX:WES), Aristocrat Leisure (ASX:ALL) and Xero (ASX:XRO) – prime examples.

Goodman Group (ASX:GMG) was down more than 4%, which suits that bill, too.

But the very bottom-performing stocks in the top 200 at 3.30pm on Friday were the uranium/energy names Deep Yellow (ASX:DYL) and Boss Energy (ASX:BOE), down 18.6% and 14.8% respectively.

Over the past five days, the XJO index has gained 0.27% and is currently 2.53% off of its 52-week high.

All 11 sectors are lower. Utilities, is the best performer, only down by 0.45%, but up +0.5% for the last week.

Your horrible Friday heat map:

 

Via ASX

ASX Sectors on Friday

Via MarketIndex

 

Hong Kong’s shares absolutely crashed more than 350 points or 2% to 16,951 on Friday in Honkers, falling for the second day to their lowest level in 14 weeks.

The Shanghai Composite fell 0.6% to around 2,915 while the Shenzhen Component lost 0.5% to 8,627 on Friday, extending losses from the previous session and tracking global markets lower as weak US economic data stoked recessionary fears.

On Thursday, mainland markets came under pressure after a private survey showed that China’s factory activity unexpectedly contracted in July amid soft demand conditions.

Overnight, Wall Street fell stupendously, leaving the S&P 500 down by 1.37%, while the blue chips Dow Jones index tumbled by 1.21%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq crashed 2.30%.

There were a couple of big names in some strife overnight in New York, specifically Amazon, which slid more than 5.3% after reporting weaker-than-expected revenue for Q2 and a disappointing forecast, with its cloud business performing well but its advertising unit falling short.

US Futures are RED at 4pm in Sydney.

 

Via Fox

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are today’s best performing ASX small cap stocks.

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

 

Spacetalk (ASX:SPA) hit positive cash flow today – from operating activities of $0.85 million in Q4FY24 (Q4 FY23: negative -$1.5 million) and positive free cashflow of $0.37million (Q4 FY23: negative -$2.24 million).

The turnaround apparently reflects Spacetalk’s execution of its strategic plan resulting in effective cost management and revenue strategies, strengthening its financial position and positioning the company for future growth. Stock is spacewalking on Friday.

MONEYME (ASX:MME) grew Q4 loan originations by 25% over the previous quarter to $165m while increasing its loan book by 6% to $1.22bn. Net credit losses dropped from 4.8% in Q3 to 4.5% while gross revenue climbed 1% to $54m. Shares in the company were up 30% this AM.

Alto Metals (ASX:AME) spiked thanks to a tie-in/takeover with Brightstar Resources (ASX:BTR), with the company now able to come out of a trading halt because a certain condition has been met – to whit, the results of Brightstar’s bookbuild in connection with a $24,000,000 capital raise ahead of the Alto purchase.

The deal would see Alto shareholders pocket 4 Brightstar shares per Alto share, and Brightstar gets its hands on Alto’s 100%-owned Sandstone Gold Project, comprising a significant land position in the East Murchison and current Mineral Resource of 1.05Moz Au at 1.5g/t.

Veris (ASX:VRS) was also up, largely due to a healthy trading update the company released a couple of days ago, which has been interpreted as “good” by investors, and sent the company climbing a smidgen over 14% today.

Earlier in the day, the leaders included Estrella Resources (ASX:ESR), after the company delivered an investor webinar on the heels of news that it has an update to exploration activities in the Lautém Municipality of Timor-Leste and the discovery of the a supergene manganese Sica Prospect, the latter of which is quite visually exciting as areas of manganese mineralisation lie exposed on the surface, with pXRF determinations in the field range between 59% – 26% Mn.

And Bastion Minerals (ASX:BMO) was up earlier on news that it has successfully completed a placement to raise $500,000 before costs through a one-tranche placement, with a 1 for 3 free attaching option along with an entitlement issue to raise up to A$1,500,000 before costs.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the day’s least performing ASX small cap stocks.

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

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TRADING HALTS

Resources and Energy Group (ASX:REZ) – pending an announcement to the market in connection with a capital raising.

Merchant House (ASX:MHI) – pending an announcement to the market in relation to the intended closure of the company’s subsidiary, American Merchant Inc, and the future intentions for the company.

Waratah Minerals (ASX:WTM) – pending the release of an announcement regarding a material capital raising.

Provaris Energy (ASX:PV1) –  pending an announcement on the potential execution of a material agreement in relation to the company’s hydrogen production and export projects and compressed hydrogen shipping activities in Europe.

St George Mining (ASX:SGQ) –  pending an announcement of a proposed acquisition and capital raising.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Besra Gold (ASX:BEZ) selected Matthew Antill to take on the role of managing director to develop the Jugan gold project in Malaysia.

Sun Silver (ASX:SS1) has intercepted up to 296g/t silver from portable XRF readings at the Maverick Springs silver-gold project in Nevada, USA.

The Calmer Co’s (ASX:CCO) product range is set to expand by 40% at Cole with its products now be available across 2,183 locations.

Brightstar Resources (ASX:BTR) is set to secure a commanding position in WA’s Sandstone district by acquiring Alto Metals and the gold rights to Gateway Mining’s Montague East project.

Venture Minerals’ (ASX:VMS) 10,000m – 15,000m aircore drill program has been designed to define high-grade mineralised zones at its flagship Jupiter rare earths discovery in WA.

Culpeo Minerals (ASX:CPO) has raised $2.2m to explore the Vista Montana, Lana Corina and Fortuna copper projects in Chile.

 

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Besra Gold, Sun Silver, The Calmer Co, Brightstar Resources, Venture Minerals and Culpeo Minerals are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

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