It’s the first trading day of 2021 and things were… spirited.

The Dow and S&P Futures point to solid opening for the year in the US, and the ASX 200 was enjoying a day in the green on all the positivity.

Bitcoin is up about 12 per cent for the year already.

Nobody’s really sure what to make of COVID-19 news in NSW and Victoria. There were no recorded cases of local transmission in NSW but there are a couple to be included in tomorrow’s count that are linked to the BWS Berala cluster.

“Virus fragments” have been detected in sewage treatments planst for 63 Sydney suburbs. And a Boost juice worker in Melbourne’s popular Chadstone shopping centre has tested positive.

Sydney has selflessly volunteered to cut the crowd number for the Third Test starting Thursday to just 10,000 people.

sad

Today’s announcements

– “Apple Premium Reseller” throughout Indonesia, Story-I (ASX:SRY), went into a trading halt today after its stock nearly doubled in morning trade. Admittedly, it was coming off a pretty low base – from 1.3 cents to 2.5 cents by midday.

It will be back on the ASX on Wednesday at the earliest with an announcement.

DroneShield (ASX:DRO) confirmed it had indeed made an all-time record with its 4Q20 cash receipts, which included $2.1m of customer cashies and another $250,000 in government grants.

Its biggest moments for the quarter came from $1.3m in orders from “a Five Eyes country” for its DroneGun and a product showcase at the recent US Army DiDEX 20 exhibition at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Emerge Gaming (ASX:EM1) continues to, well, emerge from the shadow of a wobbly moment back in November when the ASX queried its method of signing people up to its mobile gaming platform MIGGSTER.

Whether they’re genuine or not, those subscribers have turned out to be worth $8.3 million since fees started rolling in just 48 days ago. The share market liked that, sending EM1 up 15 per cent to 9.2 cents today.

Bionomics (ASX:BNO) has jumped into a seven-day trial of its lead drug candidate BNC210, which has been granted Fast Track designation by the US Food and Drug administration.

BNC210 is primarily a treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but while it has the desired USDA fast-track approval, the liquid suspension version – which was supposed to be taken with food – wasn’t providing “sufficient blood exposure for efficacy”. So Bionomics has taken away the “must be taken with food” component and is trialling a tablet formulation for seven days.
 

Trading halts

The following companies are in trading halts and are expected to exit over the next two trading days:

Today
Zeotech (ASX:ZEO) – capital raising
Buddy Technologies (ASX:BUD) – financing update

Wednesday
Sensen Networks (ASX:SNS) – pending an announcement
Vango Mining (ASX:VAN) – pending an announcement
Story-i (ASX:SRY) – pending an announcement