Small caps have dropped while large caps have gained.

The Small Ordinaries index of 200 small-cap companies on Friday dropped 0.33 per cent to 3,087.2, while the ASX20 index of Australia’s 20 biggest companies rose 0.26 per cent to 3,747.5.

For the week, the Small Ords was down 1.5 per cent, while the ASX200 dropped 0.6 per cent.

The Emerging Companies index of nano-cap companies rose 0.8 per cent to 2,056.6 on Friday, finishing the week up 1.4 per cent.

Sectors were mixed on Friday, with a strong performance by Afterpay (ASX:APT) pulling up the tech sector.

The buy now, pay later leader climbed 10 per cent to an all-time high of $133.15, and hit an intraday all-time record of $135.54.

The tech sector was overall up 2.6 per cent. Mining, telecom and property were also up, but not as dramatically, while every other sector was down.

Another fintech had a tough end to a horror week.

Tyro Payments (ASX:TYR) fell 11.8 per cent to $2.32 before going into a trading halt after short-seller Viceroy Research claimed Tyro has underreported the extent of a problem in the eftpos terminals it provides to merchants.

“Tyro’s IP does not seem particularly valuable and has very little moat in an industry where innovative players are coming in hot,” Viceroy wrote.

Tyro called the allegations false and would update the market on the problems next week.

The fintech has acknowledged that 19 per cent of its customers have been “fully impacted” by the software bug.

TYR shares are down 32 per cent so far this year.


Elsewhere on the ASX:

Announcements

Navigator Global (ASX:NGI) gained 8.8 per cent to $1.985 after the wealth manager announced that assets under management had increased to $US13.15 billion, thanks to strong investment performance for the December quarter.

Bigtincan Holdings (ASX:BTH) rose 1.5 per cent to $1.03 after announcing that it had acquired a VoiceVices, a Baltimore-based company for $US2 million. Bigtincan described VoiceVibes, which provides automated voice coaching, as a leader in voice analytics.

BARD1 Life Sciences (ASX:BD1) climbed 6.6 per cent to 64.5c after announcing that founding scientist Dr Irmgard Irminger-Finger would step down from the company’s board of directors, while continuing as a consultant. Dr Irminger-Finger, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, said that the pandemic had made it difficult to contribute as much as she would like to her directorship duties. She will continue developing the BARD1 autoantibody program and working on other projects from Geneva.

Vortiv (ASX:VOR) declined 2.8 per cent to 17.5c after the technology company announced that Jeffrey Lai was resigning as chief executive officer and managing director, but will remain as a non-executive director. Howard Digby will be replacing him as executive chairman, at a salary of $120,000 a year.

Thor Mining (ASX:THR) announced it had completed the acquisition of two additional license areas adjacent to the Ragged Range in the Pilbara region of WA. Thor is paying 12.5 million shares, plus options, for the tenements.

Trading halts

Monday:

Shekel Brainweigh (ASX:SBW) – capital raising

Tuesday:

Energy Technologies (ASX:EGY) – grant news
Anova Metals (ASX:AWV) – exploration results
Lindian Resources (ASX:LIN) – test work results