Lunchtime small cap wrap: Who’s having a good day and who really isn’t

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Here are the key ASX small cap gainers and decliners at 12.30pm AEDT today (Mar 26).

The Small Ords was down 12 points at 2,683 at 12.45pm AEDT.

GOING UP

Australian Dairy Farms (ASX:AHF) made a splash today after announcing plans to join the growing band of infant formula exporters.

Aus Dairy rocketed more than doubled from 11c to 25c amid heavy trading on Monday morning. The shares were up 82 per cent at 20c by 1.15pm AEDT.

Aus Dairy told investors it would convert “six high-quality Victorian dairy farms to organic production” under a plan to produce infant formula for Australian and overseas markets.

The infant formula sector has continued to gather investor support this year.

Last week shares in Synlait Milk (ASX:SM1) jumped after the New Zealand-based infant formula company posted strong revenue growth numbers. The same day China-focused infant formula exporter Clover Corporation (ASX:CLV) reported a jump in half-year profit.

MinRex Resources (ASX:MRR) jumped 29 per cent to 9.2c today after announcing it would snap up three cobalt, scandium, copper and nickel projects in prospective parts of Australia at a time when the specialty and base metals sectors are hotting up.

MinRex struck a deal to acquire Clean Power Resources – an explorer with three high-quality projects in NSW and WA.

The shares were trading at 8.6c at 1.15pm AEDT, compared to a 7c close on Friday.

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Marketing services business Salmat (ASX:SLM) put on 30 per cent today after agreeing to sell its call centre business for $53 million to fund manager Five V Capital.

The shares jumped from 46c to 60c after the announcement.

Salmat, which started as a letterbox distribution business almost 40 years ago, has been undertaking a strategic review amid a 4 per cent fall in revenue last half.

Elsewhere, the ASX’s newest cobalt explorer Winmar Resources (ASX:WFE) continued to rise after last week’s announcement that it would sign up the same advisor as popular lithium stock AVZ Minerals ahead of a plan to expore the Congo.

On Tuesday the shares closed up 150 per cent at 1.5c — a four-year high.

Today the shares hit a new high of 2.1c by 1.15pm AEDT.

Broken Hill Prospecting (ASX:BPL) also continued its upwards journey afte unveiling a deal with Korean technology giant LG on Friday.

After rising 77 per cent to hit 14c on Friday, the shares today jumped as high as 21c. They were trading at 17c at 1.15pm AEDT — up 21 per cent.

Under the partnership, LGI will provide capital and technical assistance for the Thackaringa cobalt project to make a high purity battery grade cobalt sulphate.

Pest-zapper Bio-Gene Technology (ASX:BGT) was making a recovery today after sharing news its Flavocide insecticide was effective against “serious rice pest the brown planthopper”.

“An estimated $3.7 billion is spent on rice insecticides globally, with much of this directed towards control of Planthopper,” Bio-Gene said.

The announcement follows a plunge in Bio-gene’s shares last week when French animal health company Virbac decided not to go ahead with developing Flavocide in tick and buffulo fly treatments.

The shares were up 28 per cent to 16c by 1.15pm AEDT Monday.

GOING DOWN

Zinc of Ireland (ASX:ZMI) was down 20 per cent at 0.4c after telling shareholders it would not go ahead with the acquisition of a lead-zinc processing plant — an option that would have fast-tracked it to production.

The company had an 18-month option to acquire a 650,000 tonne-per-annum processing plant originally used at the Galmoy mine, 70km from its Kildare project area.

To exercise the option, Zinc of Ireland would have had to pay $6 million in cash and issue $2 million worth of shares.

Lithium explorer Dart Mining (ASX:DTM) continued to fall after last week revealing disappointing results from its investigation of pegmatite-bearing dykes in north-east Victoria.

Pegmatites are rocks formed from lava or magma that are the primary source of lithium.

Dart last week told investors that “preliminary interpretation of the incomplete results so far available is that those relatively few dykes sampled are unlikely to contain lithium mineralisation of economic interest”.

The shares were down 11 per cent at 0.8c by 1.30pm AEDT.

Stocks down on thin trading and no news included Dateline Resources (ASX:DTR), Citigold Corp (ASX:CTO) and Pancontinental Oil & Gas (ASX:PCL).

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