Last month, the ASX finally reached its pre-pandemic high, went in circles for a couple of weeks then reached it again.
What else happened in May? Well, the phase “To the moon” obtained its traditional meaning once more.
While the phase has been hacked by redditors who use it when expressing hopes their stocks will go up, the Earth went “to the moon”.
We got just a little bit closer to the moon than usual resulting in a phenomenon known as a super moon.
While this happened in April too, May’s super moon coincided with a lunar eclipse resulting in a red super moon – a Super Flower Blood Moon, to be precise – something we won’t see again until 2033.
And 180 lucky passengers on a special Qantas flight got 12km closer still.
On a similar topic, SpaceX finally flew its Starship prototype on the fifth attempt. And something even rarer than a Super Flower Blood Moon occurred – Chelsea became Champions of Europe.
Here are the top 50 ASX small caps for the month of May 2021>>>
Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort. Best viewed on a laptop
| Code | Company | Price (31 May 4pm) | ReturnMRoll% | Sector | MktCap$ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MDX | Mindax Limited | 0.072 | 2300 | Resources | $ 115,515,825.60 |
| CPN | Caspin Resources | 2.72 | 306 | Resources | $ 148,978,366.56 |
| CAP | Carpentaria Resource | 0.14 | 186 | Resources | $ 73,739,799.98 |
| SWP | Swoop Holdings Ltd | 1.1 | 139 | Tech | $ 137,014,407.60 |
| BPM | BPM Minerals | 0.515 | 134 | Resources | $ 14,321,250.00 |
| 4CE | Force Com Ltd | 0.035 | 133 | Resources | $ 37,699,331.75 |
| AGE | Alligator Energy | 0.035 | 133 | Energy | $ 82,750,968.58 |
| GBR | Greatbould Resources | 0.12 | 131 | Resources | $ 45,807,831.03 |
| MEY | Marenica Energy Ltd | 0.33 | 128 | Energy | $ 66,518,867.52 |
| HLX | Helix Resources | 0.036 | 125 | Resources | $ 51,435,357.60 |
| IVX | Invion Ltd | 0.02 | 122 | Health | $ 110,760,845.90 |
| IMU | Imugene Limited | 0.4 | 111 | Health | $ 2,219,036,913.28 |
| PPK | PPK Group Limited | 14.97 | 104 | Industrial | $ 1,334,886,377.07 |
| ACW | Actinogen Medical | 0.115 | 102 | Health | $ 182,661,440.17 |
| CLZ | Classic Min Ltd | 0.002 | 100 | Resources | $ 40,221,264.37 |
| ASQ | Australian Silica | 0.18 | 98 | Resources | $ 38,859,088.24 |
| VAR | Variscan Mines Ltd | 0.061 | 91 | Resources | $ 13,204,885.49 |
| DVN | Devine Limited | 0.235 | 88 | Property | $ 37,301,680.66 |
| ODY | Odyssey Gold Ltd | 0.14 | 84 | Resources | $ 61,091,611.43 |
| TKL | Traka Resources | 0.031 | 82 | Resources | $ 15,700,417.11 |
| TAR | Taruga Minerals | 0.1 | 82 | Resources | $ 53,075,033.13 |
| RDS | Redstone Resources | 0.02 | 82 | Resources | $ 12,222,984.07 |
| BUX | Buxton Resources Ltd | 0.125 | 76 | Resources | $ 15,646,374.68 |
| CVV | Caravel Minerals Ltd | 0.515 | 69 | Resources | $ 194,679,471.28 |
| LOT | Lotus Resources Ltd | 0.2 | 67 | Resources | $ 195,291,549.32 |
| DEV | Devex Resources Ltd | 0.425 | 63 | Resources | $ 103,168,651.60 |
| IMM | Immutep Ltd | 0.7 | 63 | Health | $ 448,976,811.60 |
| ATR | Astron Corp Ltd | 0.57 | 61 | Resources | $ 70,424,319.85 |
| APD | Apn Property Group | 0.9 | 59 | Property | $ 296,593,238.70 |
| LCD | Latitude Consolidate | 0.073 | 59 | Resources | $ 62,172,278.57 |
| TLM | Talisman Mining | 0.22 | 57 | Resources | $ 41,058,244.70 |
| SLZ | Sultan Resources Ltd | 0.28 | 56 | Resources | $ 18,426,613.09 |
| HMD | Heramed Limited | 0.255 | 55 | Health | $ 37,095,290.40 |
| MSR | Manas Res Ltd | 0.01 | 54 | Resources | $ 24,842,462.38 |
| POD | Podium Minerals | 0.545 | 54 | Resources | $ 180,834,574.89 |
| BMN | Bannerman Resources | 0.19 | 52 | Resources | $ 237,827,555.60 |
| MTC | Metalstech Ltd | 0.19 | 52 | Resources | $ 26,148,998.46 |
| CR1 | Constellation Res | 0.47 | 52 | Resources | $ 13,613,173.58 |
| NWE | Norwest Energy NL | 0.009 | 50 | Energy | $ 40,587,547.28 |
| PBX | Pacific Bauxite Ltd | 0.003 | 50 | Resources | $ 1,189,842.10 |
| STG | Straker Translations | 2.29 | 48 | Tech | $ 119,536,681.00 |
| SVL | Silver Mines Limited | 0.33 | 47 | Resources | $ 351,308,176.33 |
| GNM | Great Northern | 0.016 | 45 | Resources | $ 19,344,815.62 |
| MAM | Microequities | 0.8 | 45 | Financial | $ 93,655,270.72 |
| WZR | Wisr Ltd | 0.32 | 45 | Consumer | $ 350,826,332.80 |
| GLE | GLG Corp Ltd | 0.36 | 44 | Industrial | $ 26,676,000.00 |
| VRC | Volt Resources Ltd | 0.033 | 43 | Resources | $ 80,931,155.43 |
| ACS | Accent Resources NL | 0.05 | 43 | Resources | $ 23,301,364.15 |
| IVR | Investigator Res Ltd | 0.12 | 43 | Resources | $ 139,014,393.74 |
| LTR | Liontown Resources | 0.555 | 42 | Resources | $ 909,554,990.50 |
May’s top 3 ASX winners
May’s top ASX winner stood head and shoulders above the rest with a 2,300 per cent gain.
Mindax Limited (ASX:MDX) had been suspended since June 2019 and was facing delisting if it didn’t recommence trading soon.
But the company re-entered the bourse during the month and gained as much as 6,000 per cent on its first day back.
Mindax’s assets include the Mt Forrest magnetite iron ore project in WA, which has a proven JORC resource of over 1.7 billion tonnes and a Chinese earn-in partner in Norton Gold Fields Pty Ltd which is a subsidiary of the China-based Zijin Mining Group.
The company has not had any news since re-entering the bourse but has held onto much of its gains.
In second spot among ASX winners in May is Caspin Resources (ASX:CPN) with a 306 per cent gain.
This company is one of many hunting a nickel-copper-PGE near Chalice’s (ASX:CHN) Julimar discovery, although it has actually been there since before Chalice’s discovery.
On May 24 the company took off after announcing “significant widths of sulphides” in two holes 1.25km apart at the flagship Yarawindah Brook project.
Taking the bronze medal is iron ore play Carpentaria Resources (ASX:CAP) which is up 186 per cent.
During May it sealed a deal to buy Pure Metal’s 24 per cent of the Hawsons Iron project in New South Wales for 90 million shares.
The company now has 94 per cent of the project and says it can now do justice to the project and complete a bankable feasibility study before proceeding to development.
Other notable ASX winners in May
Property stocks rarely make the monthly winners list and when they do, it’s rarer still if it’s on the back of news.
But two made the ASX winners list for May. One was property developer Devine (ASX:DVN).
Devine is 59.11 per cent owned by CIMIC Group (ASX:CIM) but CIMIC now wants to own the rest of the company – so much so it bid at a 100 per cent premium.
The other was landlord APN Property Group (ASX:APN) which got a $320 million takeover bid from its larger peer Dexus (ASX:DXS).
The companies declared that the offer was compelling and provided incremental growth opportunities.
Another peculiar sector was biotech – three stocks gained over 100 per cent in May.
Two of these were cancer therapy stocks Invion (ASX:IVX) and Imugene (ASX:IMU).
The former of these was a late bloomer, kicking off its run last week after presenting the initial proof-of-concept testing results on INV-043, the company’s latest Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) using the Photosoft technology.
Key findings from the study indicate that INV-043 has greater anti-cancer activity, and better cancer-targeting characteristics than previous generations of APIs developed by Invion.
As for the latter, now a $1.9 billion company, it ended last month announcing its clinical trial data was published in a prestigious American cancer research journal and has been rising ever since.
During May it entered into a licensing agreement with a Los Angeles cancer research centre and saw its CEO and managing director up their stakes in the company through the exercise of options.
The third is Actinogen (ASX:ACW) which is fighting dementia and has been rallying in recent months since a change of management.
May was a good month for uranium stocks too with Marenica Energy (ASX:MEY) and Alligator Energy (ASX:AGE) leading the charge.
While the former stock had little additional news during the month, the latter picked up further uranium-rich ground in South Australia.
ASX-focused fund manager Microequities (ASX:MAM) continued to reap the benefits of the current bull run in the financial market while Wisr (ASX:WZR) continued to enjoy the run in the consumer finance market.