Last Orders: The ASX finishes the day in the red

Both ASX small and large caps finished Wednesday lower than they finished yesterday.

The ASX Emerging Companies Index declined 0.78 per cent, reaching 2,119.3 points and the ASX Small Ords fell 0.75 per cent to 3,216.4.

The ASX 200 fell by only 0.38 per cent to 6,890.9 points.

Today’s top sectors were resources and energy while the biggest laggards were tech and consumer staples.

Province Resources (ASX:PRL) was today’s top winner, surging 458 per cent.

It acquired the Gascoyne and HyEnergy projects in WA’s north-west and will focus on renewable green hydrogen, as well as industrial minerals like salt, sulphate of potash (SOP) and mineral sands.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Investment bank Moelis (ASX:MOE) announced mixed financial results for the 2020 full year. Its underlying earnings fell 5 per cent and corporate advisory and equities revenue fell 14 per cent but asset management and assets under management grew by 10 per cent and 11 per cent.

EML Payments (ASX:EML) released its results too – for the first half of FY21. It reported $10.2 billion in Gross Dollar Value, up 54 per cent and a net profit after tax of $13.2 million, up 30 per cent.

Sacgasco (ASX:SGC) announced its Borda well was set to spud this week and the chance of intersecting at least one gas zone was estimated at 70 per cent.

One of the stocks seeking to fight COVID-19 eSense-Lab (ASX:ESE), announced its proprietary blend terpene profile showed it could neutralise a weaker human coronavirus (HCov-OC43).

Sports prediction app SportsHero (ASX:SHO) signed a 3 year partnership with ICON Esports. The companies will jointly operate and co brand an esports focused prediction network on SportsHero’s Indonesian OlahBola platform.

Oil stock FAR Limited (ASX:FAR) received a takeover offer from Russian energy giant PJSC Lukoil. FAR said it was considering the proposal – which values the company at $220 million.