ASX Small Caps and IPO Weekly Wrap: Get ready for Easter, ’cause the market’s pulled a Bunny out of its hat

• The ASX 200 benchmark set to end a short week up 2.25%
• Goldies turn in another solid win, gaining 8.2% as spot gold hits AUD$3,000/oz
• Western Mines Group (ASX:WMG) turn Easter into a Beaster, up 166.7% for the week.

With just four days’ time to give investors as much heartburn as possible, Aussie markets have certainly taken us on a journey this week.

The ASX 200 benchmark is set to close out pre-Easter proceedings with a +2.25% effort, which isn’t bad considering it has been labouring into some very hefty headwinds since Monday, because things have been a bit sticky around the world.

Every sector managed to squeak into the black this week, with Health Care leading the way on +5.6%, while Materials lagged behind, up just 0.57%, despite the gold sector pushing it along harder calving cow.

More on that later… The gold stuff. Not the cow stuff. Cows are painfully boring to read about.

WHAT MADE THE WEEK

Locally, the Big News came via the RBA on Tuesday, when the board took their piggy little snouts out of the trough long enough to wave a dismissive hand in our general direction and throw us a long-awaited pause in interest rate hikes.

After 10 months of taking Aussie borrowers out to the woodshed for a good, old-fashioned arse whippin’ (they generally use a soft hat with corks round the rim, so it’s mostly just a show for the tourists), the Board finally came to their senses and kept rates steady.

But… the damage is probably already done, tacitly acknowledged by the Board’s subsequent call for “more housing, please”, as Australian rents have gone well beyond “a firm grip on your balls”, and deep into “cough up, or you’re into the woodchipper” territory.

“The country is experiencing the longest stretch of continuous rental price growth on record as house rents rise for the eighth consecutive quarter and unit rents for the seventh,” real estate website Domain said in a report released today.

CoreLogic reported earlier this week that Sydney’s median weekly rental price had reached $699 – which is completely insane when you consider that at the end of March last year, that (roughly) $2,800 a month was only a couple of hundies short of a monthly payment on a $600,000 home loan.

Granted, $600,000 wouldn’t have bought you much more than a garbage can (close to transport, decent school district, only on fire 3 days a week) – but still… it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that in a city like Sydney, where expanding housing is massively difficult, when mortgage rates go up, landlords will have zero hesitation in hiking up rental prices so they aren’t going out backwards.

Interestingly, there is a very strong narrative doing the rounds at the moment that the rental squeeze (low supply, eye-watering rents, etc) is because of an apparent “huge number of immigrants here on temporary work visas”.

I’m not sure if it’s an overblown factor, or just a deeply racist effort to deflect attention elsewhere, but either way – holy sh-t!

It makes the RBA’s call for more housing so painfully, deeply cynical it almost defies belief – but what would I, the typical rent-paying middle-aged pinko-lefty Sydney scumbag know?

… that turned into a bit of a rant. Sorry. (not really).

Anyway… the other major motivator this week (locally) was a surging gold price, which saw spot gold finish the week 1.8% higher, and above the Magical US$2,000/oz mark – and the extra-super magical $3,000 mark, if you’re counting it out using our puny, piss-weak Aussie Dollarydoos.

Between that, and market uncertainty over interest rates (and the yawning chasm of a highly-probable recession in the US) saw a massive spike in interest for the Goldies.

The XGD ASX All Ordinaries Gold index finished the week 8.2% higher – thanks in no small part to some solid gains among the Big Boys, including Bellevue (ASX:BGL) up 13.2% for the week, and Silver Lake (ASX:SLR) up 11.8%.

Those performances pale in comparison, though, compared to extraordinary performance by mini-Goldie Western Mines Group (ASX:WMG), which has banked a +166.7% hike – earning it’s spot at the top of the Small Cappers table this week.

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks from 03 – 06 April:

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

Western Mining’s extraordinary effort comes off the back of a one-two hit of great news from the company, as Reuben “Super Moustachio” Adams reports.

Yesterday, WMG announced cumulative 693.5m at 0.28% nickel, 128ppm cobalt, 61ppm copper, plus palladium and platinum in one drill hole at its “extensive” Mulga Tank mineralised system in WA.

Today, it says initial test work on selected drilling at Mulga Tank suggests a high percentage of nickel in sulphide form versus silicate nickel.

Nickel from sulphide minerals is easily extracted, whereas nickel locked in silicate minerals is not.

“This basic comparison test work attempts to further confirm the disseminated nickel mineralisation at Mulga Tank and prove that it is hosted in potentially recoverable sulphide form – these very positive results clearly demonstrate it is,” WMG managing director Dr Caedmon Marriott says.

“We’re conscious of exploring by economics and deliberately selected shallow intervals found in the top few hundred vertical metres that could be amenable to large scale open pit scenario.

“As a follow up to this comparison work the team is making plans for metallurgical beneficiation testwork using bulk samples from the remaining drill core.

“This will aim to demonstrate a payable high-grade nickel concentrate could be recovered from the mineralised intervals. This would unlock the project and build confidence in a resource drill out.”

Next best on the ladder (outside of the sub-sub-penny players) is 4D Medical (ASX:4DX), whose 4D Chess approach to its medical SaaS tech has landed it a very juicy US contract, marking a brilliant start to 4DX getting it’s foot in the door of the world’s most profitable health care market.

4DX is up 74% on news that it’s signed a five-year contract with the University of Miami to provide XV LVAS (X-ray Velocimetry Lung Ventilation Analysis Software) ventilation reports.

The contract comes after a successful long-term clinical trial program already underway at University of Miami – and, given how freakishly expensive health care is in the US, 4DX’s official entry into the market there has money-spinner written all over it.

And in third-ish-esque place, it’s Besra Gold (ASX:BEZ) – a recent market darling that had its own WMG-moment not last week but the one before, when it chalked up a ball-busting 300% gain in 5 days.

That was on news that of a US$300m offtake deal with major shareholder Quantum Metal Recovery, securing funding to bring its 3Moz Bau gold project into production.

This week’s climb is due to rising gold prices, Besra being top-of-mind among investors, and Quantum’s first $2 million cheque arriving in the mail – so BEZ is up another extra 65% this week, taking its climb for the month to +275%.

There’s a lengthy list of Small Cappers that didn’t fare so well this week – but because it’s terribly bad karma to pour vinegar into someone’s wounds, here’s a table with some numbers in it… you can make up your own stories about how, and why, it’s all gone wrong for them.

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks from 03 – 06 April:

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

ASX IPOs this week:

There were none this week, but we’re expecting one on Tuesday, once everyone’s back on deck after the Easter break, full of Holy joy, chocolate and in severe peril of losing their feet to diabetes, or nails.

So that’s it from us – and, if I may be so bold, from and (most of) the team here at Stockhead, please have a safe, happy Easter and we’ll see you all again as soon as we manage to roll the stone away from the entrance to the cave.