A good morning to you all, and welcome to the start of a brand new financial year. I trust you’ve all had a fabulous weekend, partying hard to ring in the New Money Year, while your friends destroy your house and do your taxes.

The ASX 200 Futures Index was pointing slightly higher (up around 0.2-0.3%) for most of the morning, while most (if not all) of you were at yoga, and I was still fast asleep… I have my reasons, and they are not cricket-related.

Local materials stocks are looking pretty good this morning, while the tech sector’s in for a beating.

For starters, Wall Street  banked a solid performance on Friday afternoon, delivering solid  gains across the major indices. The Dow added 0.84%, the S&P added 1.23% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was once again on top, climbing 1.45%.

US 10-Year bonds climbed 0.028 to 3.846, and 5-Years climbed 0.037 to 4.17.

In US stock news, investors are really getting behind seasonal cruise line stocks at the moment, with Carnival Cruises once again doing really well, up 9.73% on news that the sausages in the breakfast buffet have tested positive to the right kind of Clostridium botulinum.

Chef says that with these sausages, the correct quantity will give passengers an edible Botox treatment, leaving them looking calm, serene and wrinkle-free – which the incorrect quantity will also do, but for a far deadlier reason.

In Europe, things were pretty good last session as well – the FTSE added 0.8%, the DAX climbed 1.26% and even the now-perennially on-fire CAC index added 1.19%.

Oil has fallen 0.4% to $70.35 a barrel prior to today’s session, natural gas has slumped 3.29%, and gold is down 0.18% to $1,925.90 per ounce.

 

STOCKS TO WATCH THIS MORNING

Hillgrove Resources (ASX:HGO)

Hillgrove has announced some results from its recent drill program at Kanmantoo into the Emily Star lode system, returning intercepts including:

  • 71.7m @ 0.89% Cu including;
    • 9.7m @ 1.29% Cu, 0.14g/t Au from 135.6m downhole
    • 4.0m @ 2.9% Cu, 0.61g/t Au from 159.3m downhole
    • 20.2m @ 1.7% Cu, 0.69g/t Au from 178.8m downhole
  • 68.75m @ 0.9% Cu including;
    • 4.8m @ 1.39% Cu, 0.09g/t Au from 169.5m downhole
    • 35.1m @ 1.29% Cu, 0.08g/t Au from 192.2m downhole

 

Kuniko (ASX:KIN)

Kunico has announced a massive $7.8 million is on the way from automarker Stellantis, after the pair entered into a strategic partnership to provide “a significant upstream investment, fostering innovation and growth in the European battery metals sector”.

 

Asra Minerals (ASX:ASR)

Asra’s looking good for a win on the back of final assays from 74 RC drillholes at Yttria confirming a Heavy-REE dominant regolith-hosted deposit over the first 2.5km strike length at Mt Stirling.

The company says there’s still more exploration to come along a further 20km of strike, but for now it’s sitting on a “standout” REE basket price of US$161/kg for Yttria mineralised zones >200ppm TREYO.