Closing Bell: UBS says gold has both colour and fizz; Macca's says same for Skyfii, up 64%

ASX 200 hits 4-day peak. Applause!

The little market rises about 0.2% higher

The skies the limit for Macca’s bound Skyfii

The S&P/ASX 200 is ahead by about 0.35% at the close of trade in Sydney on Tuesday after hitting a four-day high. The weather is bright and hot. The mood is mute in the sombre city. The jacarandas let slip their tardy purple dreams on the afternoon asphalt.

The small cap ASX/XEC index is a breathless 0.2% higher.

And ahead of the Wall Street open on Tuesday in New York, Futures for the Dow Jones are almost exactly breakeven, while on the Nasdaq and broader S&P 500 they’re pointing to a slight -0.1% kick off.

Wall St rallied overnight as traders pumped while they could ahead of some already Trump-flavoured midterm elections and coin-toss inflation data to be unveiled later in the week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average showed opportunistic mettle, ending 1.3% ahead.

The broader S&P 500 gained 1% and the tech-fat Nasdaq Composite found 0.9%, largely ignoring an official supply warning from Apple, which probably read about key supplier Foxconn’s latest China zero-production policy.

At almost 4pm AEST, shares in Taiwan and on Korea’s Kospi index are 1% ahead. In Japan the Nikkei’s having a great day, up 1.4%. While Chinese mainland and Hong Kong indexes are lower.

Meanwhile, UBS has put out the annual Global Economics and Markets Outlook 2023-24.

The Swiss fiscal thinkers have covered their bases nicely with this verbal straddling of the single biggest question traders face, saying next year we’re in for a “global recession of sorts.”

The investment bank has put GDP growth at an etiolated 2.1%, the weakest since 1993, discounting the Black Swans of COVID-19 and Pandemic and the US Housing collapse in 2008.

On the plus side, UBS reckons there’ll be a big rebound in the price of gold next year as the monetary policy squeeze continues.

The traditional safe haven, inflation hedge and headwear of kings, is usually a standout when the business of markets gets volatile, but global inflation and the central bank led interest rate tightening has taken a heap off the value of gold, if not the size and scope of inlfationary pressures.

But the Swiss investment bank says gold should be back on the menu, and soon. Looking ahead, the precious metal provides an attractive risk-reward looking ahead, UBS says.

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

CODE	COMPANY	PRICE	% TODAY	VOLUME	MARKET CAP
SKF	Skyfii Ltd	0.055	57%	2,388,327	$14,489,255
TKM	Trek Metals Ltd	0.1325	51%	23,829,214	$27,333,693
SGA	Sarytogan	0.315	37%	8,240,952	$14,192,643
AVM	Advance Metals Ltd	0.012	33%	500,083	$4,300,897
MDI	Middle Island Res	0.07	27%	174,067	$6,733,002
RCR	Rincon	0.14	27%	2,003,555	$6,300,640
LDR	Lode Resources	0.14	22%	5,226,816	$5,889,392
AD1	AD1 Holdings Limited	0.018	20%	988,490	$10,510,969
ERW	Errawarra Resources	0.24	17%	579,357	$11,189,281
GGG	Greenland Minerals	0.055	17%	5,445,689	$63,719,969
A3D	Aurora Labs Limited	0.035	17%	118,069	$5,524,742
IPT	Impact Minerals	0.007	17%	2,438,287	$14,888,223
JTL	Jayex Technology Ltd	0.007	17%	2,462,967	$1,495,371
RAN	Range International	0.007	17%	1,258,236	$5,635,742
M2M	Mtmalcolmminesnl	0.078	16%	265,798	$4,172,492
SKY	SKY Metals Ltd	0.05	16%	189,850	$16,201,689
CCZ	Castillo Copper Ltd	0.022	16%	4,015,363	$24,690,602
B4P	Beforepay Group	0.405	16%	54,000	$12,190,226
LLO	Lion One Metals Ltd	0.895	15%	8,881	$8,920,830
TGN	Tungsten Min NL	0.09	15%	544,029	$61,340,313
HTG	Harvest Tech Grp Ltd	0.076	15%	302,817	$38,935,152
BUS	Bubalusresources	0.23	15%	190,410	$5,409,235
PEC	Perpetual Res Ltd	0.023	15%	708,518	$10,736,346
FML	Focus Minerals Ltd	0.155	15%	52,293	$38,685,417

Data analytics services firm Skyfii (ASX:SKF), rose 68.6% this morning according to the notoriously bad math of dormant english professor Gregor Stronach.

He says SKF is whopping on a deal with a US operation called McDonald’s:

The three-year deal will see Skyfii’s tech rolled out in eight of the 13,342 McDonald’s restaurants Stateside, snagging $2 million for SKF as it delivers “an industry first real-time whole of restaurant monitoring and analysis solution focused on improving restaurant operations, service efficiency, food freshness and customer satisfaction”.

Elsewhere, it’s Sarytogan Graphite (ASX:SGA), high-grade drilling results out of Kazakhstan and numbers which go like this:

22.9m @ 30.1% TGC from 16.2m incl. 5.1m @ 35.5% in ST-73
25.1m @ 34.0% TGC from 17.9m incl. 17.9m @ 37.1% in ST-74
69.6m @ 25.5% TGC from 20.2m incl. 4.7m @ 37.7% in ST-77
15.9m @ 32.1% TGC from surface incl. 10.0m @ 38.1% in ST-78
25.4m @ 33.2% TGC from surface incl. 5.0m @ 36.6%
- incl. 16.3m @ 36.4%
26.4m @ 34.2% TGC from surface incl. 12.4m @ 37.8%
- incl. 11.4m @ 35.3% in ST-82A
20.1m @ 33.4% TGC from surface incl. 8.4m @ 36.4%
- incl. 9.2m @ 36.5% in ST-82
74.1m @ 29.1% TGC from surface incl. 13.6m @ 36.3% ST-83

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the least performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

CODE	COMPANY	PRICE	% TODAY	Volume	MktCap
PHL	Propell Holdings Ltd	0.027	-34%	11	$4,351,463
TSC	Twenty Seven Co. Ltd	0.001	-33%	1,010,000	$7,982,442
CCE	Carnegie Cln Energy	0.0015	-25%	1,283,155	$31,285,147
GTG	Genetic Technologies	0.003	-25%	11	$36,935,861
MGG	Mogul Games Grp Ltd	0.0015	-25%	11	$6,526,882
SIT	Site Group Int Ltd	0.003	-25%	313,136	$4,204,981
SYN	Synergia Energy Ltd	0.0015	-25%	22,095	$16,835,581
VPR	Volt Power Group	0.0015	-25%	1,049,275	$18,689,067
CBY	Canterbury Resources	0.034	-23%	11	$5,897,035
NCL	Netccentric Ltd	0.05	-22%	11	$18,112,746
AIV	Activex Limited	0.039	-20%	1	$10,586,576
MXO	Motio Ltd	0.028	-20%	20,919	$9,016,075
NNG	Nexion Group	0.08	-20%	11	$8,087,101
AQX	Alice Queen Ltd	0.002	-20%	14	$5,500,625
AVE	Avecho Biotech Ltd	0.008	-20%	11	$18,378,693
KFE	Kogi Iron Ltd	0.004	-20%	284,034	$8,160,389
ROO	Roots Sustainable	0.002	-20%	351,011	$2,288,582
IGN	Ignite Ltd	0.062	-17%	1	$6,718,663
BPP	Babylon Pump & Power	0.005	-17%	11	$14,746,628
DW8	DW8 Limited	0.0025	-17%	40,518,201	$8,854,568
PCL	Pancontinental Energ	0.005	-17%	8,801,510	$45,325,337
PUA	Peak Minerals Ltd	0.005	-17%	5,651,954	$6,248,225
TD1	Tali Digital Limited	0.0025	-17%	650,011	$3,697,892
GTI	Gratifii	0.016	-16%	367,335	$19,114,514
MCM	Mc Mining Ltd	0.22	-15%	83,671	$51,390,266

A FEW WHICH MAY’VE SLIPPED UNDER THE RADAR

With

Love & Affection

from G

Hi all, you can read an unabridged version of this copy over at the much classier late arvo section called Last Orders, that’s where the real crimes against language and finance meet every afternoon near 4pm.

Back to Monday’s Gascoyne Resources’ (ASX:GCY) announcement.

The 2H23 guidance for the Dalgaranga Gold Project appeared to be innocuous enough until:

At 12:23pm Tuesday, Gascoyne told the market its shares were suspended from trade, immediately. At 12:49pm GCY released another statement saying its business was no longer a going concern.

What exactly happened in those 26 minutes that made GCY go from updating the market to, we can’t go on, this is over and the endeavour is unsustainable, and i’m leaving?

Gregor probably knows.