The big news today from the Big Australian – BHP is not impressed with Olympic Dam’s copper potential.

Apparently the ore body is “highly variable in grade” so its $US2.5 billion Olympic Dam Brownfield Expansion won’t go ahead.

UBS still rates BHP a buy, but has dropped its price target from $41.00 to $39.25.

Copper. Gah.

Here’s a couple of items that might have snuck under your metal detector today.

Announcements

– The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has placed fundraising restrictions on  Holista CollTech (ASX:HCT) following alleged continuous disclosure failures, including a late announcement that it missed sales forecasts on its Natshield sanitiser product. Holista says it is cooperating with ASIC’s investigation, which is ongoing, but it is considering whether to appeal the restrictions through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

– EML Payments (ASX:EML) says it had record first-quarter earnings of $10 million, up 69 per cent from the prior quarter and 215 per cent from a year ago. The payment solutions provider said that gift and incentive volumes recovered significantly in the three months to September 30, following the initial impacts of Covid-19.

– Buddy Technologies (ASX:BUD) had a pair of announcements, disclosing in the morning that a vendor had agreed to forgive $US10 million in debt associated with Buddy’s acquisition of LIFX in 2019, and then announcing after the market closed that San Francisco-based Partners for Growth had agreed to provide the building monitoring and smart lights company with a loan facility of up to $US20 million to refinance the rest of the debt.

– YPB Group (ASX:YPB) has announced that QR Codes are ready for deployment on its proprietary Connect Platform for venue based COVID-19 contact tracing anywhere in the world. The contact tracing platform is equipped with “artificial intelligence” (AI) algorithms which can rapidly identify a person’s movements and locations based on their device use after scanning QR codes. YPB Group CEO John Houston said: “We believe there is a large market opportunity for our contact tracing-enabled codes as venues look to upgrade existing technology….. As venues start to open up and take larger numbers of people, demand for contact tracing technology will grow.”

– Immutep (ASX:IMM) has been given a patent in Europe for its pre-clinical product candidate IMP761, a possible treatment for T-cell mediated inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. According to chief executive Marc Voigt, IMP761 is the first agonist antibody that targets the immune checkpoint LAG-3. It could be used to treat the root cause of autoimmune diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

–  DUG Technology (ASX:DUG) says that executive director and chief financial officer Louise Bower will cease her executive role to pursue other interests after 11 years with the company, while continuing as a non-executive director. She’ll be replaced by Bhavesh Morar, the former CFO of Little Green Pharma (ASX:LGP) , as of November 2.

Trading halts

Accelerate Resources Limited (ASX: AX8) – pending it releasing an announcement
Holista Colltech (ASX: HCT) – pending a further announcement
Anteotech (ASX: ADO) – pending a further announcement
Urbanise.com Limited (ASX: UBN) – capital raising
Proteomics International Laboratories Limited (ASX: PIQ) – pending an announcement
Encounter Resources Limited (ASX: ENR) – pending an announcement
HGL Limited (ASX: HNG) – capital raising
Trek Metals Limited (ASX: TKM) – pending an announcement
Predictive Discovery Limited (ASX: PDI) – pending an announcement
OneVue Holdings Limited (ASX: OVH) – pending an announcement
King Island Scheelite Limited (ASX: KIS) – pending an announcement

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