Lunchtime small cap wrap: who's on a home run and who's toast

Here are the key ASX small cap gainers and losers at 1pm AEST Thursday.

The ASX Small Ords was up 15 points at 2,712 by 1pm AEST.

In the green

Vanadium news excited investors in Aura Energy (ASX:AEE) — sending its shares up more than 50 per cent to 3.2c.

The shares were trading at 2.9c by 1pm AEST.

Aura told investors its Swedish project has 13.1 billion pounds of vanadium as “inferred” resource — with a grade of 0.28 per cent.

Mineral resources are categorised in order of increasing geological confidence from inferred to indicated to measured.

Inferred resources are estimated using limited geological evidence and sampling information, which means there is not enough confidence yet to evaluate a project’s economic viability.

Aura said it is reviewing the downstream battery market as a value-add to its strategy.

Magnetite Mines (ASX:MGT) has surged 31 per cent to 2.1c this morning on no news.

The company is in the process of acquiring Lodestone Equities, to increase its share of South Australia’s magnetite mines — the final framework of which was released last month.

Today, it shared details of a rights issue to fund the merger — proposing to raise $2 million at 1.5c per share.

The stock is down from a 52-week high of 4.8c

Smart cities software developer XTD (ASX:XTD) is teaming up with IT big dog IBM. The news sent its share price up 29 per cent to 3.5c — though it’s traded as high as 12.5c in the past year.

Under the agreement, IBM and XTD will collaborate with the small cap to create and market solutions combining the tech giant’s cloud solutions with its smart cities tech.

XTD already develops tech that allows interaction with billboard screens and personal mobile devices — which it hopes to accelerate through the agreement.

Crypto investor Fatfish Internet Group (ASX:FFG) today shared details of its crypto mining venture — sending its shares up by a third to 4.4c before they cooled to 4c by 1pm AEST.

Fatfish hopes to “mine” one bitcoin per day once it moves to full capacity (up from 60 per cent capacity now).

The average weekly haul now is two bitcoins and eight Ethereum Ethers – worth about $20,916 and $5,216 respectively in today’s prices.

Online gamer Esports Mogul (ASX:ESH) touched 2.2c and was trading at 2c by 1pm AEST — a gain of 18 per cent.

Esports released a preso showing how it’s capitalising on the booming esports (online gaming) industry. It now has a direct rival in ASX debutante Emerge Gaming (ASX:EM1).

Esports hopes to increase its user base and expand into mobile gaming.

ASX Code	Name	% CHANGE	Price Thu 12pm AEST	Volume

MGT	Magnetite Mines	31	2.1c	120 660
XTD	XTD	29	3.5c	69 992
FFG	Fatfish Internet Group	24	4.1c	5 298 346
ESH	Esports Mogul	23	2.1c	26 794 434
AEE	Aura Energy	21	2.5c	29 140 415

GCR	Golden Cross Resources	-36	1.2c	5 361
ESR	Estrella Resources	-34	3c	7 595 315
DKM	Duketon Mining	-20	23c	376 734
SL1	Symbol Mining	-12	3.4c	1 024 247
AHL	Aha Life Holdings	-12	2.1c	1 416 567

In the red

Aussie junior miner Golden Cross Resources (ASX:GCR) was trading down 36 per cent to 1.2c with no news in the market.

The company has a broad portfolio which includes prospects for copper, iron, gold, phosphate and zinc.

Earlier this year it said it was committed to progressing its Copper Hill project once additional funding was secured.

The latest results from Estrella (ASX:ESR) did little to excite investors.

Estrella said it had intersected cobalt, nickel and copper mineralisation in its latest drilling — including 11 metres at 0.12 per cent cobalt and 0.38 per cent Nickel from 36 metres.

Now, it’s going back to survey the area again with high-power technology.

The shares were down 35 per cent to 3c at 1pm AEST.

Duketon Mining (ASX:DKM) fell 14 per cent to trade at 25c by 1pm AEST — still double its price six months ago.

The company gave an exploration update for its Golden Star and Regional mines — showing individual grades of as much as 47.9 grams of gold per tonne.

Anything above 5g/t is considered high-grade.

Zinc miner Symbol Mining (ASX:SL1) yesterday confirmed high-grade zinc at its Aisha mine but investors weren’t sold. The stock has fallen 12 per cent to 3.4c today. It was trading at 3.6c by 1pm AEST.

Symbol said drilling results showed significant high-grade zinc and lead mineralisation at its second discovery — which had strong potential at depth.

Designer retailer AHAlife (ASX:AHL) fell 12 per cent to an intraday low 2.1c, before climbing back to 2.3c by lunch.

After the departure of its previous chief, the company remains under the mangement of Christopher Colfer until June.