Last Rounds: Small caps finally get some love, rise 1.2%

Small caps have finally shown some sign of life, rising for the first time in six days and outperforming their larger counterparts.

The Small Ordinaries index finished Friday up 37.2 points, or 1.18 per cent, to 3,191.5, while the All Ordinaries gained just 0.58 per cent.

The ASX100 rose even less, 0.41 per cent, while the Emerging Companies nano-cap index advanced 0.92 per cent.

For the week the Small Ords, which measures the performance of Australia’s 101st to 300th biggest companies, fell 0.21 per cent after modestly losing ground every day since last Thursday, March 18.

The All Ords index rose 1.49 per cent for the week and the ASX200 gained 1.7 per cent, advancing 0.5 per cent on Friday. It was both indexes’ best week since the first one in February.

Every sector except healthcare was up on Friday, with telecom the biggest gainer, rising 1.3 per cent. It was buoyed by Telstra (ASX:TLS), which gained 2.4 per cent to $3.41 after announcing it would delist itself from the NZX.

Healthcare fell 0.7 per cent, dragged by CSL (ASX:CSL), which fell 0.9 per cent to $267.46.

Bell Direct market analyst Jessica Amir said that investors did the “re-shuffled your portfolio” dance this week, buying defensive stocks in healthcare and utilities, backing economic growth stocks while continuing to move out of the tech sector.

The economic growth sectors of consumer discretionary and real estate are doing better as vaccinations rise and covid restrictions lift on hospitality venues and Victorian office workers, Amir said.

The biggest gainer for the week in the All Ords was Cettire (ASX:CTT), which rose 26.9 per cent to close Friday at $1.51, its best finish ever. The online luxury fashion retailer debuted on the ASX in December.

Small-cap news

Mad Paws Holdings (ASX:MPA) finished at 24c in its debut on the ASX. The diversified pet services company, whose main business is a petsitting website, raised $12 million at 20c a share.

Immutep (ASX:IMM) rose 33.3 per cent to 46c after Bristol Myers Squibb announced that a drug similar to Immutep’s lead candidate had succeeded in fighting cancer in a large study.

Genex Power (ASX:GNX) was flat at 23c after the pumped energy storage company raised $56 million via a placement and institutional entitlement offer, part of a $90.3 million equity raise.

Digital Wine Ventures (ASX:DW8) soared 31.8 per cent to 14.5c after the WineDepot cloud-based wine marketplace announced it is working with eBay to let Australian wineries list their products directly on eBay without having to set up an account.