It was George Bernard Shaw who famously said that “progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything”.

That’s a philosophy that the subject of today’s news story has embraced like a long-lost sibling, after performing one of the most epic backflips in recent history.

In the US, there’s a fella called Pastor Creflo Dollar. The name, on its own, says pretty much everything you need to know about him – but in case you haven’t twigged, we’ll explain.

Pastor Dollar is a preacher, who regularly stands up in front of his flock and shakes them down for 10% of their wages every week, in a process that some call “tithing”, and others call “morally repugnant”.

Followers are expected to tithe, because Creflo’s God (rumour has it) has an insatiable appetite for fiat currency, ever since his portfolio tanked following a disastrous attempt to short Buddhism.

For years, Creflo Dollar has been a prominent exponent of Prosperity Gospel, which – as far as we’re able to figure out – says that if you give Creflo Dollar heaps of money (which he promises to pass along to Jesus), God will reward you.

There are a few red flags here: small up-front investment, vague promises of completely unrealistic wealth, the Founder and his 12-strong dev team don’t even show up on LinkedIn… this clearly has s#%tcoin ICO rug-pull of Biblical proportions written all over it.

So far, though, it’s worked out pretty well for the Pastor, who had the nerve – nay, the gumption – to ask his many dirt-poor parishioners to chip in $300 a pop, because he wanted a $65 million dollar private jet.

All aboard the private jet. Destination: Heaven. Possibly. Pic via Getty Images.

Anyhow, a few days ago, Pastor Dollar made a stunning announcement – tithing, he says in his sermon “The Great Misunderstanding”, is now wrong.

It’s a bold move for Pastor Dollar. With the markets so volatile at the moment, shifting his focus away from a guaranteed passive income model to something far more speculative could end up costing him a pretty penny.

Not quite as much as he’d lose if he had to give back all the money he’s made, but he won’t have to. It turns out Big Dollar TV Preaching is a far-less regulated industry than most people think.

 

TO MARKETS

Like a teenager on his first “proper date”, Aussie markets opened enthusiastically before wilting in a disappointing fashion while mumbling lies about this “never happening before”.

Investors seem to have shrugged it off, however, when the cuddling kicked in around 11.30am and before too long the market was raring and ready to go again, up nearly 0.5%.

Across the sectors, there wasn’t a whole heap of movement between brekky and lunch. Big winner was a 1.0% rebound in Materials, but worrisome dips from Info Tech (-1.35%) and Industrials (-0.88%) capped gains.

The rest of the sector movements are barely worth a mention. So we won’t mention them. Except for mentioning that they don’t rate a mention.

In the “That’s Billion… with a B” club, there weren’t many companies writing love letters to investors.

However, Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) did raise some eyebrows after revealing a solid nickel-copper-PGE discovery.

Chalice says the find includes “~15m to 80m wide zone of disseminated sulphides (avg. 1-3% sulphide), with locally abundant matrix sulphides (up to 20-30% sulphide), intersected in ultramafic-mafic intrusive rocks (pyroxenite, lesser gabbro/peridotite) in three wide-spaced holes”. Tasty.

There are, however, quite a few of the Big Ticket Club on the red side of the ledger, all of them from Materials, making a mockery of that sector’s rise this morning. Stand by for a roll call:

West African Resources (ASX:WAF) (-9.0%), Zimplats Holdings (ASX:ZIM) (-6.7%), Lynas (ASX:LYN) (-6.3%), Sayona Mining (ASX:SYA) (-5.0%), Gold Road Resources (ASX:GOR) (-4.7%) and Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) (-4/6%).

We’re sure they all had their reasons, but we don’t have time to play Agony Aunt this morning – there’s just far too many of them.

 

NOT THE ASX

Looking beyond our horizons, US markets enjoyed a nifty “we’re all in this together” day, with the three major indices –  the S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq – up by 0.30% each.

The minutes for the US FOMC meeting held in June were released, showing that Fed members believed that rates should be increased by 50bp or 75bp on July 26, on par with how investors had priced in the rate hike we all know is coming.

Asian markets are all mixed up again, with Japan’s Nikkei up 0.9%, Hong Kong down 0.8% and Shanghai as flat as a cartoon cat, steady at +0.06%.

Commodities spent the morning moving around in precisely the manner that Uluru doesn’t.

Oil and gas went their separate ways, with the black stuff dropping 0.6%, while the not-nearly-as-black stuff climbed 0.3%.

Gold stuff went up 0.2%, silver things fell 0.1% and copper bounced back from recent falls, adding 0.6%.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for July 7 [intraday]:

Code Company Last % Market Cap
S3N Sensore Ltd 0.625 56% $8,359,787
KYK Kyckr Limited 0.076 55% $26,342,393
OXT Orexplore Technologies 0.11 51% $7,567,486
GTG Genetic Technologies 0.004 33% $27,701,895
MEB Medibio Limited 0.002 33% $4,134,735
RLG RooLife Group Ltd 0.013 30% $7,022,309
CM8 Crowd Media Limited 0.024 26% $13,676,942
AVM Advance Metals Ltd 0.01 25% $3,823,019
MGG Mogul Games Grp Ltd 0.0025 25% $6,523,320
PRM Prominence Energy 0.0025 25% $4,849,218
RXH Rewardle Holding Ltd 0.01 25% $4,210,572
RFX Redflow Limited 0.048 23% $57,210,422
DTC Damstra Holdings 0.19 23% $39,942,940
BEX Bikeexchange Ltd 0.028 22% $11,363,618
1ST 1St Group Ltd 0.006 20% $6,440,869
CAD Caeneus Minerals 0.006 20% $23,303,025
SIH Sihayo Gold Limited 0.003 20% $15,255,320
ADD Adavale Resource Ltd 0.026 18% $7,861,207
CML Chase Mining Limited 0.013 18% $5,149,460
SPX Spenda Limited 0.013 18% $34,998,279
XRG Xreality Group Ltd 0.04 18% $14,322,349
TG6 Tgmetalslimited 0.135 17% $4,496,198
FML Focus Minerals Ltd 0.175 17% $42,983,797
AQX Alice Queen Ltd 0.0035 17% $5,098,544
ARO Astro Resources NL 0.0035 17% $14,115,724
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In Small Caps Land (head to the Smurf Village, turn left and follow the signs), and it’s Kyckr (ASX:KYK) that’s gone zooming off the charts, up 54% on news that Richard White’s wholly-owned RealWise is about to wholly-own Kycker, to the tune of $0.08 a share.

RooLife (ASX:RLG) has – *ahem* – bounced better than 30% on news that it is set to bring a bunch of OTC medicines to market in China, alongside partner AFT Pharmaceuticals (ASX:AFP), whose shares did not bear similar fruit, down 2.7%.

And Crowd Media (ASX:CM8) was up 26% this morning, with its Talking Head AI technology becoming the talk of the retail town.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks for July 4 [intraday]:

Code Company Price % Market Cap
AVW Avira Resources Ltd 0.003 -25% $8,475,160
RNO Rhinomed Ltd 0.1 -20% $35,714,962
GGX Gas2Grid Limited 0.002 -20% $10,145,255
LNY Laneway Res Ltd 0.004 -20% $31,510,082
LRL Labyrinth Resources 0.021 -19% $22,707,536
SXG Southern Cross Gold 0.395 -19% $30,197,434
AUK Aumake Limited 0.005 -17% $4,628,682
ROG Red Sky Energy. 0.005 -17% $31,813,363
TPD Talon Energy Ltd 0.006 -14% $60,991,277
A1M Aic Mines Ltd 0.43 -14% $154,382,509
3MF 3D Metalforge 0.013 -13% $2,166,568
NME Nex Metals Explorat 0.027 -13% $8,277,732
GSN Great Southern 0.034 -13% $20,762,316
PLG Pearl Gull Iron 0.041 -13% $2,580,408
CLE Cyclone Metals 0.0035 -13% $24,416,948
HLX Helix Resources 0.007 -13% $18,585,167
LSR Lodestar Minerals 0.007 -13% $13,907,499
RDS Redstone Resources 0.007 -13% $5,894,659
SIO Simonds Grp Ltd 0.175 -13% $29,446,854
TCG Turaco Gold Limited 0.052 -12% $25,235,283
ODE Odessa Minerals Ltd 0.015 -12% $9,131,569
AJX Alexium Int Group 0.024 -11% $17,421,928
BCA Black Canyon Limited 0.2 -11% $10,033,307
G1A Galena Mining 0.16 -11% $85,752,964
DCX Discovex Res Ltd 0.004 -11% $11,558,988
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