Closing Bell: When doves cry, bears listen and small caps pay

The ASX200 has taken a 0.5% hit on Wednesday, with the tech sector giving back all the previous session’s gains after Wall Street fell and the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite lost 2.3% overnight.

The overnight session was dominated by comments from the formerly dovish US Fed Governor Lael Brainard, says OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley.

“Brainard set the cat amongst the pigeons of the equity and bond markets with some very hawkish comments,” he says.

First she suggested a 0.50% hike was on the table as “strong action” was required to reign in inflation and then volunteered the idea that a sharp reduction of the Fed’s balance sheet – quantitative tightening – could be fast-tracked to begin as early as next month, at a faster pace than previous cycles.

“What makes the comments overnight so significant is that Ms Brainard is typically one of the most dovish of the FOMC members. If she has swung into the uber hawk camp, then markets need to take notice and that they did,” Halley said.

Also not helping was further EU and Western-led sanctions aimed at Russian exports. That helped put the boot into European markets and much of that mood flowed on through into the local region today.

In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index is down 1%, while the Hang Seng shed 1.3% in the first hour of business as Shanghai’s COVID-lockdown further undermines confidence in the Chinese economy.

The ASX Emerging Companies (XEC) index is getting pasted, down over 1.5% in the last hour of trade.

Iron ore futures continue to edge higher, moving past $US162, while oil stepped back and the Aussie dollar-buck has started eyeing 76 US cents.

TODAY’S BIGGEST SMALL CAP WINNERS

(Stocks highlighted in yellow rose after making announcements during the trading day).

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort.

Code	Description	Price	%	Volume
EMP	Emperor Energy Ltd	0.072	60.0%	56,984,193
BRX	Belararoxlimited	1.11	56.3%	1,592,378
GGX	Gas2Grid Limited	0.0035	40.0%	57,805,163
TMK	TMK Energy Limited	0.018	38.5%	47,124,135
LRS	Latin Resources Ltd	0.215	30.3%	83,026,090
AQD	Ausquest Limited	0.029	26.1%	8,274,838
JXT	Jaxstaltd	0.035	25.0%	10,524,591
AD1	AD1 Holdings Limited	0.02	25.0%	1,434,561
KEY	KEY Petroleum	0.0025	0.0%	40,000
XTC	Xantippe Res Ltd	0.016	23.1%	218,962,590
GGE	Grand Gulf Energy	0.058	20.8%	44,856,103
BXN	Bioxyne Ltd	0.018	20.0%	200,000
SFG	Seafarms Group Ltd	0.018	20.0%	13,138,588
AFW	Applyflow Limited	0.003	20.0%	666,666
TYX	Tyranna Res Ltd	0.006	20.0%	4,554,914
TEM	Tempest Minerals	0.125	19.0%	34,148,415
IGN	Ignite Ltd	0.165	17.9%	62,721
CR1	Constellation Res	0.27	17.4%	39,931
BTC	BTC Health Ltd	0.068	17.2%	666
BDG	Black Dragon Gold	0.076	16.9%	706,324
ADD	Adavale Resource Ltd	0.049	16.7%	4,257,802
LSR	Lodestar Minerals	0.021	16.7%	54,263,823
IPT	Impact Minerals	0.014	16.7%	18,795,021
MRZ	Mont Royal Resources	0.39	16.4%	238,762
HOR	Horseshoe Metals Ltd	0.043	16.2%	505,948

A punchy new metals play like Belararox (ASX:BRX) doesn’t have to do too much fancy to catch the eye of twitchy investors at the moment. In this case nothing at all also works.

The explorer of zinc-copper ores is up 52% after 3pm in Sydney. As far as I can make out, after IPOing in January with $6m at $0.20, BRX’s share price has surged 443%, now trading at $1.12.

This makes it one of the best performing ASX IPOs for 2022 and really suggests that there’s something exciting in the ground at its historical Belara copper-zinc project in NSW. The boss puts BRX’s share price rise down to the soaring zinc price.

“Zinc is over $4,000 a tonne, I can’t remember ever seeing that,” BRX Chief technical consultant Greg Partington told Stockhead.

Pearl Gull Iron (ASX:PLG) has drilled into ‘thick, high-grade iron ore’ at the Cockatoo Island ‘Switch Pit’, including ~57m grading 68.9% fe from ~80m.

That’s lovely high ore. The benchmark grade often quoted is 62% fe – anything better can attract a substantial price premium from buyers and aside from the very rare exceptions like Mount Gibson Iron’s (ASX:MGX) absolutely fascinating Koolan Island, the mainland doesn’t have much high-grade hematite floating about like in Brazil or in Africa. PLG is up about 13%.

Thomson Resources (ASX:TMZ) has hit thin but shallow and super high-grade silver at the ‘Webbs’ project at the Lachlan Fold Belt in NSW, ahead of a mineral resource estimate pencilled in for the current quarter.

New results include 6.62m at 793g/t from 67m, and come as part of TMZ’s “Fold Belt Hub and Spoke Strategy” which involves building a +100Moz silver eq resource base across multiple deposits that could be processed at a central facility.

Earlier today, TMZ executive chairman David Williams said the Webbs deposit is the most complex of all TMZ’s deposits and needs a lot of love to fully understand the high-grade silver and base metal deposit.

“Having said that when the Webbs MRE is delivered, Thomson will have produced five new MREs under JORC 2012 in well under 12 months which is an outstanding outcome from the team,” he said… before adding:

“We have not just rubber stamped previous published resources, we have gone through from scratch, gone through all the available historic information, and added in new data and studies where there have been gaps.

“What we will end up with is an MRE that we will have a lot of confidence in – our better understanding of the geological setting again throws up clear target areas for exploration drilling to expand and extend the resource.”

The share price is up 13.33% on Wednesday.

TODAY’S BIGGEST SMALL CAP LOSERS

(Stocks highlighted in yellow fell after making announcements during the trading day).

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort.

Code	Company	Price	%	Volume
ADN	Andromeda Metals Ltd	0.115	-34.3%	148,323,920
KFE	Kogi Iron Ltd	0.006	-25.0%	13,015,845
NTL	New Talisman Gold	0.0015	-25.0%	66,666
CXM	Centrex Limited	0.165	-21.4%	10,437,600
AQS	Aquis Ent Ltd	0.14	-20.0%	14,295
DXN	DXN Limited	0.009	-18.2%	4,749,751
POW	Protean Energy Ltd	0.009	-18.2%	12,770,564
RD1	Registry Direct	0.019	-17.4%	760,000
ODA	Orcoda Limited	0.13	-16.1%	442,535
ATV	Activeportgroupltd	0.11	-15.4%	270,540
BOA	Boadicea Resources	0.2	-14.9%	494,726
FG1	Flynngold	0.175	-14.6%	667,605
AKM	Aspire Mining Ltd	0.077	-14.4%	471,100
HCD	Hydrocarbon Dynamic	0.012	-14.3%	287,660
SKY	SKY Metals Ltd	0.095	-13.6%	136,640
MIO	Macarthur Minerals	0.485	-13.4%	339,109
SFM	Santa Fe Minerals	0.13	-13.3%	167,635
MLS	Metals Australia	0.135	-12.9%	32,194,075
AQX	Alice Queen Ltd	0.007	-12.5%	650,000
LCT	Living Cell Tech.	0.007	-12.5%	179,090
BCT	Bluechiip Limited	0.035	-12.5%	86,378
EUR	European Lithium Ltd	0.14	-12.5%	20,184,720
ZBT	Zebit Inc.	0.042	-12.5%	57,715
UUL	Ultima Utd Ltd	0.18	-12.2%	19,370
CGB	Cann Global Limited	0.036	-12.2%	1,935,603

ANNOUNCEMENTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

Cancer fighting company Race Oncology (ASX:RAC) provided an update on the clinical trial process for its drug candidate Zantrene, for the treatment of patients with extra-medullary Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) or high-risk Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS).

RAC said it’s now received ethics approval for the Phase 1 trial, which will include a Phase 2 dose expansion phase and recruit up to 60 patients. The next step is Research Governance Office (RGO) (site budget and contracting) approval, where RAC said “all required documentation has now been submitted to enable this outcome”.

“Governance approval is typically received within 4 to 8 weeks from submission,” the company added.

Lodestar Minerals (ASX:LSR) says it has acquired a 100% interest in application E45/5735 located in the East Pilbara region of Western Australia and 8km north of the giant Telfer gold operations.

The company snapped up the tenement after an application for ground subject to compulsory relinquishment was awarded by ballot. Lodestar will acquire the interest in the tenement on a deferred basis, 12 months after grant.

The consideration for the asset was a hefty $2,144 being the sum of application and rent fees. The 1,000m tenement is located in the Paterson Orogen, host to