Lunchtime ASX small cap wrap: who’s a playing tough game

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Here are the key ASX small cap winners and losers at lunch Wed Oct 24:

The ASX Small Ords index is continuing on a downward trend, falling 0.7 per cent or 18 points to 2642 by 12.50pm AEST.

GOING UP

There were shades of Biotron’s recent run as cancer detector BARD1 Life Sciences (ASX:BD1) today continued rocketing after announcing it was adding breast cancer testing to its line-up.

After tripling on Tuesday, the stock put on another 70 per cent this morning to hit an intraday high of 7.5c. That’s a gain of about 475 per cent compared to the 1.3c it was fetching yesterday. It cooled to 5.4c by lunch.

Almost $24 million worth of shares had been traded today by 1pm AEST.

These are the highest prices seen since Bard1 transformed from a gold miner EuroGold in 2016. Its share price rose as high as 27.7c in 2009.

BARD1 reckons its new blood test that can detect 6 per cent more cases of ovarian cancer than by simply using an algorithm.

Elsewhere punters piled in to mouthguard maker Impression Healthcare (ASX:IHL) after it started the drawn-out process of applying for local cannabis licences.

Impression (ASX:IHL), which is best known for anti-snoring mouth guards, has signed up as the local distributor for US cannabis researcher AXIM Biotechnologies.

The stock shot up more than 120 per cent to 3.5c today before dropping back to 2.6c by 1pm AEST.

Impression has applied to the Victoria Department of Health and the Office of Drug Control (ODC) for cannabis import, storage, distribution and export licences — though there’s an eight-month backlog of applications.

Impression hopes to have the licences in place for its Melbourne factory by March.

Former chemotherapy Alchemia (ASX:ACL) has continued rising strongly this week — despite no news and an ASX price query.

The shares have doubled this month — and were up 23 per cent to 1.6c at lunch.

That’s a long way from the 67c it was fetching back in 2014 before the failure of trials of its chemotherapy treatment HyACT. But the company is still hoping for a resurrection.

Alchemia last week told the ASX it had no news to share — but it was “continuing to seek out business development opportunities within the broader life sciences sector and other sectors” — as it’s been saying for some time.

“The company has had numerous discussions with other participants in related fields to discuss possible mergers and other corporate transactions.”

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Satellite phone maker World Reach (ASX:WRR) jumped to its highest price since April today after its subsidiary Beam Communications sent off the first major delivery — $2.4 million worth of “Thuraya” wireless data terminals.

The stock jumped almost 30 per cent to 18c.

“We are very pleased to be in a position to fulfill the entirety of this initial order,” said boss Michael Capocchi. “The WE product will be launched and promoted this month by Thuraya to its channel partners with new Thuraya WE specific plans. We expect the product to be well received by the market.”

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks at 12.15pm Wed Oct 24:

Swipe or scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort

GOING DOWN

Biotech darling Biotron (ASX:BIT) fell 25 per cent to an intrday low of 16c today after releasing its quarterly cash statement.

Biotron burned $600,000 last quarter leaving $900,000 in the kitty ahead of the next stage of trials of its HIV treatment.

Though that’s not a problem — since Biotron last week locked in an underwriter for $4.7m worth of options it’s about to sell to raise money for the next two years.

Biotron has taken investors on a wild rollercoaster ride in recent weeks, rocketing from 1.4c as high as 44.5c before cooling back to 17c by lunch today.

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks at 12.15pm Wed Oct 24:

Swipe or scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort

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