The ASX 200 slipped by -0.3% on Tuesday, tracking movements on Wall Street overnight. 

The local market was dragged down by profit taking in the Tech and Comm Services sectors, while Energy was the only one to close in the green.

Advancers today include gold mining stocks after bullion prices continue to trade higher from a weaker USD, trading now at around US$2,171 an ounce.

Woodside (ASX:WDS) and Santos (ASX:STO) meanwhile lit up the Energy sector, both popping by around 1% after crude prices climbed overnight. 

Australia’s consumer confidence however underscored today’s mood, falling in March as households remain concerned about their finances and the near-term prospects. Sentiment declined 1.8% to 84.4 points with pessimists heavily outweighing optimists.

Most pundits however believe the RBA is done with hiking rates, but as to when it will start cutting rates is open for debate. The next RBA meeting is slated for May 6–7.

 

Big ideas from bank CEOs

In other news, Australia’s biggest bank chief executives are having a conference at the AFR’s Banking Summit today.

Some of the takeaways and points of discussions were: 

A four-year federal election terms would be preferable to the current three years.

If we want economic growth, we need immigration to help support sectors such as healthcare and childcare.

The urgent need to free up the planning system to get more homes built faster, urging state governments to standardise their process.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Today’s best performing small cap stocks:

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The clear standout for today  was  Many Peaks Minerals (ASX:MPK), which – at the time of writing – was ahead by +195% for the day.

Many Peaks has entered into a binding agreement with Turaco Gold to acquire 89% of CDI Holdings (Guernsey) – a holding company for the Ivorian subsidiary party to a JV which has earned into  a 65% stake in four Ivorian permits, and holds the right to earn-in to an 85% interest by sole funding any project within four mineral licences in Cote d’Ivoire through feasibility study.

Mesoblast (ASX:MSB) jumped 50% after announcing that U.S. FDA has informed the company that following additional consideration the available clinical data from its Phase 3 study MSB-GVHD001 appears sufficient to support submission of the proposed Biologics License Application (BLA) for remestemcel-L for treatment of pediatric patients with steroid-refractory acute graft versus host disease (SR-aGVHD). Mesoblast now intends to file the resubmission during the next quarter, seeking to address all remaining product characterisation issues.

Sarama Resources (ASX:SRR) was also moving up nicely, this morning, probably because West African gold is looking like hot property, for obvious reasons.

Cokal (ASX:CKA) has managed to secure itself a 12-month revenue stream by chartering barges to “ensure continuous delivery” of its coal to market. That revenue stream is in effect, with the company announcing this morning its received payment from the loading of 7,500 tonnes of product coal on to barges at the Batu Tuhup Jetty. Said barges will transport 7,500 tonnes of high-grade thermal coal product to Sumbar Global (SGE), which has been sold under the existing offtake contract.

Trek Metals (ASX:TKM) rose on good on news regarding its Champagne Pool epithermal gold target within the Pincunah Project in the Pilbara region of WA. The news is, basically, drilling has been announced to commence in the coming weeks at the untested, high-potential target. The company says there is every indication that strong surface geochemical indicators are suggestive of a cap to an epithermal gold system, with the gold zone likely ‘intact’ sub-surface.

Iris Metals (ASX:IR1) says ongoing diamond drilling program at its 100% owned Beecher Project “continues to deliver strong results”, with the company announcing “new wide and high-grade lithium intercepts” from its Black Diamond pegmatite prospect. Intercepts include as 53.55m at 1.73% Li2O from 125.0m, including 5.2m at 2.39% Li2O and 9.7m at 3.59% Li2O incl 4.9m at 5.07% Li2O.

Titomic (ASX:TTT) is celebrating a noteworthy sale, after the Netherlands Army purchased 10 of the company’s D523 Cold Spray systems, with the sale worth more than 770,000 Euros.

Mandrake Resources (ASX:MAN) says rock chip samples that exceeded laboratory radiation limits have returned consistent, significant concentrations of uranium up to 0.73% U3O8. These results have validated high-grade uranium prospectivity within Mandrake’s extensive land position, which incorporates much of the historic mines that extracted 78 million pounds of U308 between 1949 and 2019.

In the larger end of town, specialty retailer Premier Investments  (ASX:PMV) rose 4% after reporting statutory first half NPAT of $177.2 million. The company also declared a record interim fully franked ordinary dividend of 63 cps, up 16.7% on the pcp.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Today’s best performing small cap stocks:

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29Metals (ASX:29M) has announced that it has suspended operations at the Capricorn Copper project, following an extended period of rainfall between late January and mid-March 2024, as a result of the weather in the region following consecutive tropical cyclones, resulting in a steady accumulation of water in regulated structures on site to levels now similar to the levels following the March 2023 extreme weather event.

Meanwhile, Coda Minerals (ASX:COD) is showing a significant dip after announcing that it has received commitments to raise $2.27 million under a placement to professional, sophisticated, and senior manager investors, comprised of 30,727,000 new fully paid ordinary shares at $0.09, together with 15,363,500 unquoted attaching options exercisable at $0.15 each and expiring five years from date of issue.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT – PM Edition

American West Metals (ASX:AW1) is getting ready to carry out high-powered moving loop electromagnetic survey work over high priority targets at its flagship Storm copper-zinc project in Nunavut, Canada, that already has a resource of 17.5Mt @ 1.2% copper and 3.4g/t silver.

EZZ Life Science (ASX:EZZ) has struck a deal to greatly increase the visibility of its EZZ and EAORON products under an advertising partnership deal with the Asia Pacific Airlines Club that will see its branding appear on 2 million boarding passes. The products will also be offered on APAC’s online shopping mall.

Race Oncology (ASX:RAC) has reached a major milestone after it was issued a Certificate of Analysis confirming that its first current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) batch of proprietary bisantrene formulation RC220 meets stringent quality specifications required for human use.

 

TRADING HALTS

Besra Gold (ASX:BEZ) – pending a response to an ASX price query.

Constellation Resources (ASX:CR1) – pending an announcement regarding a capital raising.

FireFly Metals (ASX:FFM) – pending the release of an announcement regarding a capital raising.

HyTerra (ASX:HYT) – for the purposes of considering, planning and executing a capital raising.

AML3D (ASX:AL3) – pending an announcement regarding a capital raising.

Astral Resources (ASX:AAR) – pending the release of an announcement in relation to a capital raising.



At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While American West Metals, EZZ Life Science and Race Oncology are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

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