Aussie markets have decided to start the end of the week with a flippy dippy show, falling 0.4% on open before rallying to get lunchtime up about 0.3%.

Whatever has happened this morning, it’s left a few people feeling like their world has been turned upside down… like finding out that something you’ve invested in has been quietly making you mildly wealthy in a very stealthy manner.

Or even – random example – learning that a work colleague once starred in a Chinese TV drama, back in the days when he looked exactly the way you’d expect a Chinese knock-off of Benedict Cumberbatch would.

(We love you, Christian.)

That’s the sort of discovery that is both alarmingly funny and a major assault on one’s mental equilibrium, while the feeble parts of your brain that are used to the world being the way it is try to make room for this stunning new information, give up because they can’t and just start blasting bagpipe music in your head out of fear and desperation.

Which is precisely how the nebulous beast known as “The Art World” is reeling… reeling… over news that a famous painting by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian has been hanging upside down for 77 years.

 

 

I’ll let you sit with that revelation for a few moments. Deep breaths. Iff you do require further assistance calming down, this article from the Smithsonian about this outrageous scandal should have you safely in a coma by paragraph 7 or 8.

Now – to be fair, it’s not like Mondrian painted a picture of a lady and some dope put her head at the bottom of the situation and no one ever noticed until one of those potato-throwing goofballs turned up to ruin everyone’s trip to the museum.

That’s because Mondrian’s style is essentially him drawing lots of squares, taking a step back and saying “It’s a bear!” or “It’s New York City” or “This one is clearly a dong, so don’t let the kids look at it.”

Which means to anyone other than the artist, it really doesn’t matter which way up it is hung, because it looks pretty much the same either way.

But it’s enough to have art lovers all over the world clutching at their pearls and barfing into their berets, obviously pretending that if you look at the picture the purportedly correct way up, it suddenly stops looking like a pecker with far too many sharp corners, and starts to resemble New York.

At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that we’re ever going to have a definitive answer on the topic – Mondrian’s been dead since 1944. We can only hope that whoever laid him to rest at least got that part of things right and didn’t bury him upside down.

And, speaking of burying things – let’s take a look at what the markets are doing this morning.

 

TO MARKETS

Australian markets have opened with a little dip this morning, with the ASX 200 sticking its little toes in the chill, dark waters of negative territory because “Wall Street was doing it, too”.

At the onset of trading, the benchmark fell by 0.4% before rallying, looking perilously close to hitting lunchtime a few millimetres from flat.

Looking at the sectors and there’s a definite split, with Energy (+2.0%), Utilities (+0.98%) and Materials (+0.71%) going gangbusters while the rest of the market is getting its sulk on.

Worst performer for the day so far is Healthcare, dropping 1.01% before lunch, beating out Telcos (-0.70%) and Financials (-0.52%) for the wooden spoon.

Best of the Big Boys this morning is Block Inc (ASX:SQ2), which has stacked on 10.6% after reporting a 17% increase in total revenue for the quarter.

I’ll be honest here – there is almost definitely more to that story, but the results announcement Block put out this morning is longer than a Dostoyevski novel, and the workday where I have time to read a 110-page ASX announcement will be the same day the Pope marches on Poland, leading an army of dinosaurs.

Also adding some value this morning is Allkem (ASX:AKE), up 4.8% on no news, and Coronado is still climbing after its news about having too much money so shareholders can have a special dividend, up 6.0% this morning but soon to be $225 million out of pocket to shareholders.

 

NOT THE ASX

Wall Street had another poor day, closing out the markets with a look on its face like it spent the morning licking cat wee off a battery – obviously with Jerome “don’t quote me on that’ Powell’s “very premature” words still ringing in investors’ ears.

The major indices all took a bit of a hit, with the Dow once again proving to be the more resilient, falling 0.46% while the S&P dropped 1.06% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gave investors more of a headache than a late night visit from a Canadian hammer enthusiast, losing 1.73%.

Meanwhile in the UK, the Bank of England has done a pretty good US Fed impersonation, hiking rates by 75bps and causing industrial quantities of fannyache across Ol’ Blighty.

British pundits are warning that the UK is about to sink into the most horrifying recession in decades, and I’m pretty sure that right about now the new PM Rishi Sunak is pondering his decision to step up into the hot seat.

Moving across to Asia now, and Japan’s Nikkei slumped -1.57% this morning, despite some awesomely-exciting news. I know we make fun of Japan a bit in this section most days (It’s fine. They love it) but this time, the Godzilla news is real.

There will be a new Japanese-made Godzilla film out in 2023. Be still my beating heart, because it’s been far, far too long since Japanese film studio Toho trotted out the single-best irradiated tower of rage to lay waste to an entire city.

In Hong Kong, where there are no enormous angry monsters at all, but there is ongoing chatter that HKSE CEO Nicolas Aguzin is looking into changing the market’s policy of pulling down the shutters in the event of a typhoon warning, after Hong Kong was forced to close early on Wednesday.

In early trade, the HKSE is flying, up 3.36% and not looking like slowing down, while Shanghai has climbed 1.11% as well.

On the commodities desk, it’s a comparatively quiet day for the Energy Twins, with oil down 0.19% and gas down 0.77%.

Gold and silver are putting on a dazzling display, up 0.17% and 0.36% respectively, but copper is in the doldrums, falling 0.16% because nobody loves it today. Awwww.

A quick look at crypto and I’m still baffled by it. However, Rob “Baffle Weary” Badman assures us that BTC and ETH are steady, and a bunch of coins that sound important have risen in price today.

Catch all the crypto goodness over at Mooners and Shakers. Go on. You know you want to.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for November 4 [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
ARE Argonaut Resources 0.0015 50% 1,550,000 $5,428,538
PFE Pantera Minerals 0.135 44% 370,126 $4,841,105
CAD Caeneus Minerals 0.004 33% 28,435,757 $16,036,815
HIQ Hitiq Limited 0.064 33% 578,169 $5,431,497
TSC Twenty Seven Co. Ltd 0.002 33% 100 $7,982,442
ADX ADX Energy Ltd 0.0075 25% 1,835,644 $21,030,178
ROO Roots Sustainable 0.0025 25% 319,071 $1,830,865
THR Thor Mining PLC 0.01 25% 4,107,969 $8,814,388
GLV Global Oil & Gas 0.003 20% 533,168 $4,683,387
OAR OAR Resources Ltd 0.006 20% 2,073,435 $10,855,189
RMX Red Mount Min Ltd 0.006 20% 83,333 $8,211,819
WA1 WA1 Resources 1.795 20% 4,276,211 $43,552,511
FRS Forrestania Resources 0.26 18% 97,706 $11,092,360
AUR Auris Minerals Ltd 0.02 18% 59,800 $8,102,641
3PL 3P Learning Ltd 1.475 18% 502 $346,987,633
C29 C29 Metals limited 0.235 18% 948,995 $7,250,126
BUR Burley Minerals 0.215 16% 444,166 $6,349,764
MIO Macarthur Minerals 0.15 15% 62,459 $21,534,953
MRL Mayur Resources Ltd 0.225 15% 139,495 $47,269,594
DEL Delorean Corporation 0.086 15% 183,903 $16,179,069
MI6 Minerals 260 Limited 0.355 15% 448,797 $68,200,000
FG1 Flynn Gold 0.12 14% 10,042 $6,726,410
AMA AMA Group Limited 0.245 14% 2,712,987 $230,710,097
WCN White Cliff Min Ltd 0.018 13% 1,176,424 $11,961,654
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In Small Caps Land, it’s Pantera Minerals’ (ASX:PFE) turn to shine, rising nearly 50% on news that it has started to drill holes in the ground at its Weelarrana Manganese Project, to test high grade outcropping manganese mineralisation at Mn Area 1.

Pantera says the drilling should take about a week to complete, with the 1,200m RC drilling program consisting of 30 planned holes, testing an 800m long up to 5m thick outcropping high grade manganese occurrence with surface grades of between 12% Mn to 44% Mn.

Results should be in over the coming weeks. Exciting stuff.

HitIQ (ASX:HIQ) has continued its march up the winners ladder, adding another 35% today after news of two huge multi-year contracts that will see its tech used in evaluating head injuries and concussions among elite athletes, including the Premier League.

And a bit of a swing for Forrestania Resources (ASX:FRS), which dipped sharply yesterday on news that  CEO Angus Thomson had resigned for personal reasons. This morning, however, FRS is up again, adding 11.2% since the market opened for the day.

And after a lot of back and forth with the ASX, Winsome Resources (ASX:WR1) – which went on a couple of enormous runs only to have the ASX step in and pump the brakes each time – is out of its trading halt.

The company has told the ASX there’s ‘nothing to see here’ in response to a price query, but the whole episode seems to have knocked the wind right out of Winsome’s sails, leaving it  down 9.8% so far today.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for November 4 [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
CCE Carnegie Cln Energy 0.0015 -25% 387,463 $31,285,147
UBN Urbanise.Com Ltd 0.57 -23% 19,644 $42,336,388
DXN DXN Limited 0.004 -20% 200,199 $8,606,574
CHK Cohiba Min Ltd 0.006 -14% 363,000 $11,393,626
DW8 DW8 Limited 0.003 -14% 1,233,494 $9,892,829
PUA Peak Minerals Ltd 0.006 -14% 677,362 $7,289,595
VIP VIP Gloves 0.006 -14% 25,768 $5,507,470
CMX Chemxmaterials 0.14 -13% 209,994 $7,498,580
TBA Tombola Gold Ltd 0.0265 -12% 6,310,339 $32,757,382
YRL Yandal Resources 0.115 -12% 86,916 $17,583,569
NFL Norfolk Metals 0.27 -11% 9,959,166 $9,096,624
EEG Empire Energy Ltd 0.16 -11% 282,112 $139,161,807
REC Rechargemetals 0.16 -11% 104,695 $7,163,100
AVE Avecho Biotech Ltd 0.008 -11% 4,750 $16,540,824
INP Incentiapay Ltd 0.008 -11% 360,000 $11,385,573
HRN Horizon Gold Ltd 0.295 -11% 6,017 $41,309,942
GCR Golden Cross 0.009 -10% 996,353 $10,972,561
PEC Perpetual Res Ltd 0.018 -10% 800,339 $10,736,346
RML Resolution Minerals 0.009 -10% 12,000 $10,597,462
WR1 Winsome Resources 0.735 -10% 10,307,429 $110,117,905
BEM Blackearth Minerals 0.088 -9% 1,684,356 $27,077,184
MOZ Mosaic Brands Ltd 0.345 -9% 218,263 $54,469,088
JAT Jatcorp Limited 0.01 -9% 9,490,143 $27,477,470
BBT Bluebet Holdings Ltd 0.4 -9% 180,936 $88,088,540
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