May began this week and let’s be honest, it’s been a load of garbage so far.

But students of such things will know investors really do seem to sell in May and not return until the St Leger’s is about to jump.

Forbes noted a couple of years ago that from 1950 to 2013, the Dow returned an average of 0.3% from May to October. The average Nov-April gain? 7.5%.

So not only do the Poms and Yanks get to swan off and spend their summers swimming in it, we’re left with the double hit of depressed markets, frozen windscreens and another bloody pub lockout looming in …oh, wait – the All Clear Sydney Effect is now back in play. Happy weekend, all:

Here’s another quite interesting chart. As we emerge from our homes, did we spend the past 12 months falling in love with the online shopping experience?

Oh, and this guy returned to the internet.

Nawww, welcome back you massive orange clown.

As you were, folks. Here’s what you may have missed.

 

The Secret Broker: How an Inner Pickle got me Pistol Knight

 

When Mrs Broker sends us a message saying her husband woke her up at 3.30am and started banging away at his keyboard, we know something special is about to emerge from Casa del Broker.

This week, the moment that caused her to wake in fright was the strange $US100 million valuation of this deli:

Picture: Google Street View

If you’re not up to speed, get with it, because it’s an eye-opener. But it also had TSB thinking of pickles in the early hours. One pickle in particular – Inner Pickle. Otherwise known as “Account 2674”, owned by “Right Freddie Wright” who definitely can’t be confused with “Wrong Eddie Wong”.

How all this is tied into an 80s scam strategy that involves convincing your poor old confused mother to take on a £318,000 losing bet, and winds up with everyone at the broker house cheering on a greyhound called Pistol Knight is anyone’s guess.

Who cares? It’s a great story.

 

Guy on Rocks: Christmas in July comes early

 

Speaking of things that *cough* “arrive” early, it’s already Christmas in July for our for-real geologist and stockbroker Guy le Page.

He’s cheering on Dr Copper as it breaks through 10-year highs:

Figure 1: 25-year copper (Source: Trading Economics)

If you’re in up to your neck in red gold, you can thank Chilean President Sebastián Piñera for making all the Chileans angry enough to keep protesting. And especially the Chilean copper producers who aren’t keen on his massive tax on copper that’s sold above the $US4/lb mark.

It’s also been a tops week for iron ore ($200/tonne), palladium (ATH) and global steel production (up 15pc yoy). And then there’s that new electric $400K Porsche Taycan parked outside the Perth office…

Here’s all the news about rocks that’s fit to print, plus a hot stock to watch with a strong electromagnetic conductor. Go on, you know you want to.

 

The world’s 10 largest ETFs grew by half a trillion dollars in 12 months. Is it time to ride the wave?

 

The world’s 10 largest ETFs have grown by 47 per cent, adding US$546 billion to the market caps in just the last 12 months. That’s Doge-like growth.

But seriously, ETFs are serious business, especially for the younger set. Millennials, or those born between 1981 to 1996, have grown as a percentage of investors from 9% to 14% since 2017 – and represents the fastest-growing generation of investors.

Generation X investors, those born 1965 to 1980, also grew from 24% to 27%.

It’s the best way to hedge your bets, and if you want to buy local, the numbers of ASX-centric ETFs is growing, and returning a decent 7 per cent per year.

There’s even one that gives you exposure to ASX small caps.

And here are the best and worst ASX ETFs, if you want to get picky about it.

 

WFH is here to stay. But which ASX stocks will stay to benefit?

 

Interesting. Online retail figures suggest we might be yearning to head back to t’shops.

But according to the latest data out of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), there’s nfw we’re going back to the office.

Apparently 30 per cent of Australian businesses have had staff working remotely in the past year, and 45 per cent of those experienced improved staff wellbeing as a benefit.

And of those, 80 per cent will continue to permit employees to work remotely over the longer term.

That’s good news if you’d invested in this basket of WFH stocks over the past 12 months:

TICKER COMPANY SEGMENT SHARE PRICE $ % 1-YEAR RETURN
NNG Nexion Data centre 0.24 0
5GN 5GN Networks Data centre 1.14 27
DXN DXN Data centre 0.014 40
AR9 archTis Cybersecurity 0.28 366
TNT Tesserent Cybersecurity 0.22 266
WHK Whitehawk Cybersecurity 0.16 183
HUB Hubify Cybersecurity 0.1 233
TPW Temple & Webster Home office 10.66 196
NCK Nick Scali Home office 10.7 149
LME Limeade Telehealth 0.81 -44
MEB MediBio Telehealth 0.007 -30
TTB Total Brain Telehealth 0.27 -42
Wordpress Table Plugin

Only three losers. And maybe this has a bit longer to run…
 

Ethereum keeps on pumping — but not as much as Dogecoin

 

Remember back when the stimmy was flowing and much japery was shared over who’d be dumping theirs straight into crypto?

Um:

The run started again on Monday as news spread of the Dogefather Elon Musk prepping to host Saturday Night Live this coming weekend, where he will obviously pump Doge. Right?

Maybe. But even if he doesn’t, Doge ran to a fresh high of US44 cents on Tuesday, and the magic mark of US69 cents on Wednesday. The “joke coin” is now the world’s fourth largest by market cap, worth about $US80 billion.

Buyers beware – code flaws in defi token Spartan Protocol and Uniswap clone Uranium Finance allowed hackers to scarper with $US80 million.

This srs jernalist is so very, very angry they didn’t buy doge they burned through untold amounts of sand and blotting paper getting this missive to the hot metal press three years too late:


FAILURE, FAILURE, FAILURE. You’re ALL FAILURES.

How DARE these people not instead spend their money pumping Northern Beaches house values? Oh wait, they did. Because the end of April marked the first time the total value of Australian housing broke the $8 trillion dollar mark.

“This puts Australian residential property at around four times the size of Australian GDP, and around $1 trillion more than the combined value of the ASX, superannuation and commercial real estate stock combined,” according to a presser that dropped yesterday.

But don’t buy crypto because that’s where the real elite money is, right? Your next warning comes from someone who discovered one whale apparently owns 28% of all Doge and could decide to dump it… You’ve stopped listening again haven’t you?

Sigh. It’s all play money. Just show us what you’ve got Elon. See if you can top a week where your Starship stuck its landing on just the fourth attempt, and Tesla sells out its production capacity already for Q2 2021.

 

PlaySide goes back to Hollywood, scores licensing deal for The Godfather

Indeed. Snap out of it people, and start investing like proper adults again… in this video game BASED ON THE GODFATHER OMG IT’S ABOUT TIME ISN’T IT?

Try explaining to your 15yo why this should be on their mobile. But then, who cares what they think, it’s Brando and Sollozzo and Fredo whacked into the lake. And it’s being developed by Aussie game-meisters PlaySide.

PlaySide are one of just three actual game-makers on the ASX right now, which is three times more than there were just six months ago.

And they’re all having a good run, especially this week, after the Feds announced a spicy first national tax offset for video game development which will be available from 1 July next year.

With the global game development market worth $250 billion, the 30% tax offset is being seen by the Australian industry as a welcome boost to help local producers create more games. And that’s all that matters.

Here’s some more detail on those three ASX-listed developers we were talking about.

The lithium sector’s second age is nearly here; these ASX stocks could open a gap on the pack

 

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence noted recently that prices of battery grade lithium carbonate had risen by 6 per cent in recent weeks to $US13,625 per tonne.

If that sounds like a lot, it is – about 103.4 per cent year-to-date.

And Macquarie has flagged that global sales of electric vehicles in the first quarter of 2021 are already up 165 per cent year-on-year.

We’ve already been through one lithium boom. It was remarkably similar to the current green hydrogen boom, where everyone just became a lithium explorer overnight, because it was hot.

The pretenders have been flushed out. It’s not enough for us to simply list anything with lithium in it.

So we roped in MineLife founder Gavin Wendt to tell us what a lithium play really needs to do from here to truly integrate themselves in the future chain.

We’re talking about the companies already at the next inflection point. The Second Age of Lithium, if you must.

We must – here are the ASX lithium stocks primed to open a gap on the pack.

Explorers Podcast: PSC’s unique Zimbabwe lithium play looks perfectly placed for the EV boom

And if you prefer the talky-talk version, Barry FitzGerald Sam Hosack, managing director or Prospect Resources, into the studio.

PSC are as dedicated to the lithium cause as they come. Its flagship project is the 70% owned Arcadia Lithium project, located on the outskirts of Harare in Zimbabwe.

You gotta love your work. Here’s why Hosack reckons it’s worth every bit of the risk.

If you’re on mobile, click here to listen with Apple podcasts, here for Spotify or here for Google Podcasts.

 

Barry FitzGerald: Forget price – these 5 nickel explorers are poised to amp up returns the old-fashioned way

Barry also took up the pen and reminded why we need to forget about that nickel matte furphy in China.

Nothing has happened yet, and probably won’t. Tsingshan can’t even confirm whether it’s cost competitive.

And no one wants dirty nickel.

But the reality is that, in the words of Garimpeiro, “while a strong nickel price dials up investor interest across the sector, a decent nickel discovery can amp up an explorer’s share price regardless of the daily, monthly or quarterly nickel price move”.

So forget price – here are 5 nickel explorers Barry has picked that are are poised to amp up returns the old-fashioned way.

April Winners Column: Resources re-takes the mantle, led by one stock that gained nearly 500pc

 

And let’s finish on a high, keeping it simple.

Here are your April winners, where 27 out of the top 50 were resources stocks and one stood head and shoulders above the rest.

About 500 per cent above the rest. First, the table:

Wordpress Table Plugin

And then, the important bit. Words.

Have a nice May. See you Monday, and thanks for being a massive Stockhead.