Lunchtime ASX small cap wrap: Who’s scoring touchdowns today?

This morning’s market open (10am eastern time) coincided with the start of the biggest event on the US sporting calendar — Super Bowl LIV.

This year’s big game features the Kansas City Chiefs going up against the San Fransisco 49ers, and heading into halftime it was all tied up at 10-10.

Of course, that’s when the second act begins; the Super Bowl halftime show which this year is being headlined by a couple of latina legends from the “naughties” — Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. (And there’s a plethora of witty Super Bowl advertisements for good measure).

Now, the NFL may not be as popular as the AFL or NRL Down Under, but the sport still has a reasonably strong following here. Which means there may be a higher incidence of annual leave days (and a few “sickies”) to start the week.

And if you’re an ASX stock picker, market analyst or fund manager, today was probably a good day to avoid showing up to work.

The local index slumped by more than 1.5 per cent, on the back of a brutal selloff in the US on Friday night when concerns about the spread of coronavirus gave rise to a hefty dose of risk-off sentiment.

The ASX Small Ords index fell to 2,946.70 points heading into midday trade — a fall of 1.63 per cent.

WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks at 12pm Monday February 3:

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

Holista CollTech (ASX:HCT)

Broadly speaking, the threat of untreatable disease has a negative effect on economic activity. But for some companies, it also creates opportunitites.

Holista went into a trading halt last week after announcing a spike in demand out of Malaysia for its disinfectant spray, NatShield. In morning trade today the stock jumped by more than 2c to 11.5c, for an intra-day gain of around 20 per cent.

Golden Rim Resources (ASX:GRM)

The minnow metals explorer also had a good start to the week, after announcing some high-grade gold strikes at its Kouri project in the land-locked West African nation of Burkina Faso.

LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks at 12pm Monday February 3:

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

Sensera Limited (ASX:SE1)

The telecommunications company rejoined the ASX boards after going into a voluntary suspension last week, and announced a $3.5m capital raising via a convertible notes issue.

Sensera also released a company update where it outlined “what went wrong” in its recent of course operations, along with plans to right the ship. But that wasn’t enough to prevent a selloff in morning trade which saw the stock slump more than 40 per cent.