ASX Small Caps Lunch Wrap: Righto… which one of you bastards won $3.1bn on Powerball last night?

Aussie markets have opened with a bang, up 0.7% in pre-luch trade following a surprisingly buoyant session on Wall Street overnight – and there the markets stayed until the lunch bell rang.

It could have gone either way, however. Market volatility in the US leapt dramatically, as every American who could be bothered to go and vote turned out to cast a ballot in the midterm elections.

We won’t start seeing results from them until later today, but one thing is certain: these midterms are crucial not just for the United States, but also global markets, with the potential to bring the Biden administration to its knees, or turn on the Bat Signal for two more years of massive political and social change.

One result that we did get overnight from the US, however, was the result of a Powerball lottery draw that had jackpotted to more than US$2 billion dollars before it was won – by one person.

Someone in California is set to pocket a pre-tax win equivalent to $3.14 billion of our Aussie dollars – and that is a chunky, chunky pie, whichever way you slice it.

The winner won’t pocket the whole lot, though, because lottery winnings in the United States are subject to a 37% Federal tax.

But even with Uncle Sam pocketing his chunk of the win, it still means that whoever bought that ticket is now, technically, worth more than De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG).

Added bonus: because the ticket was purchased in California, the federal tax is the only one that applies, because Cali’s one of the very few US states that doesn’t place a separate state tax on lottery winnings.

So… if it was you that scooped the Powerball pool last night, and if you’re stuck for ideas on what to do with all that money, there’s a fella called Sam Bankman-Fried who could probably do with a loan.

SBF lost a heart-stopping US$15 billion overnight after his crypto exchange crumbled in a comparative instant.

It is one of the biggest stories in crypto this year – and our very own Rob “The Oracle” Badman has it all covered here. Go read it now, because it’s amazing – Lunch Wrap will still be here when you’re done.

… annnnd, you’re back! Brilliant story, yeah? It’d be funny if it wasn’t so serious for a lot of other people, but it’s still massively funny because Bankman-Fried essentially got caught with his todger in the till, and now he’s got nothing to show for it. #Implodapalooza.

EN-EE-HOW… let’s get into what the markets have been up to, shall we?

TO MARKETS

As we barrel towards lunch today, the ASX 200 is barrelling towards a 0.7% gain, driven hard by a surging Materials sector, which has added 2.24% today to its recent gains, which have it up a solid 5.64% over the past week.

Real Estate and Health Care are also plugging away at adding value to the game, up 1.07% and 0.61% respectively.

InfoTech and Telcos are – I think – trying to send some sort of signal, but the internet’s patchy today and I don’t get great mobile reception in the office here, even on the best of days.

The tech-heavy Blunder Twins are down 0.87% and 0.70% in a concerted race to lose the most money before we break for lunch.

At the top end of town, where the market caps are so huge even Jay Leno could find himself a hat, Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM) and Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) are pumping up the volume, both around +6.60% for the day so far.

Not faring so well are three of the country’s big Energy players, Whitehaven (ASX:WHC), New Hope (ASX:NHC) and Stanmore (ASX:SMR), all down between 5.3% and 7.9%.

Of those, Whitehaven’s the only one with a market-moving statement out today, and it’s not great news – the coal miner has downgraded FY23 sales guidance (thanks a bunch, El Nina!) from 17.5-18.5Mt to 16.5-18.0Mt. #SadFace.

Time to peer through the neighbours’ windows to see how they’re doing this morning.

NOT THE ASX

Wall Street’s weirdly upbeat pre-midterm results overnight have had a knock-on effect on Aussie markets, with all three major US indices closing higher. The S&P climbed 0.56%, the Nasdaq added 0.49% and the stuffy old Dow harrumphed and grunted its way to a 1.02% stately rise.

Notably, the so-called VIX “Fear Index” leapt out of its skin like it had been soundly goosed by a presidential hopeful, heading for the ceiling with a +4.89% jolt.

News in the US is all Powerball and Midterms – but of note is very recent news that Elon Musk offloaded US$3.95 billion in Tesla shares in the aftermath of his decision to spend US$44 billion to acquire a roughly US$30 billion dollar, unprofitable social media folly.

Also in the US, if you work for Salesforce you probably don’t anymore – the company has reportedly laid off many, many people because all the cool kids are, like, really into lay-offs right now.

Meanwhile, in Asia, where things are loads more normal, Japan’s Nikkei is the only needle pointing into the red, down 0.22%. I don’t know why, I don’t have time right now to look into it, so let’s just call it “whale karma” and move on.

In Hong Kong, things are much rosier, up 0.63% and even Shanghai’s on the positivity wagon today, up 0.14%.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for November 9 [intraday]:

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

Code	Company	Price	%	Volume	Market Cap
RNE	Renu Energy Ltd	0.09	125%	61,581,082	$14,582,640.48
AO1	Assetowl Limited	0.0015	50%	1,526,534	$1,572,129.76
SKF	Skyfii Ltd	0.085	49%	3,861,334	$23,596,787.38
AQI	Alicanto Min Ltd	0.07	40%	1,874,707	$20,630,680.85
CCE	Carnegie Cln Energy	0.002	33%	3,563,325	$23,463,860.57
CFO	Cfoam Limited	0.004	33%	132,304	$2,201,521.90
SYN	Synergia Energy Ltd	0.002	33%	269,650	$12,626,686.06
AM7	Arcadia Minerals	0.34	31%	1,278,442	$12,141,451.92
BGD	Barton Gold Holdings	0.19	27%	532,187	$12,893,883.45
ADV	Ardiden Ltd	0.0075	25%	10,506,283	$16,010,012.14
AQX	Alice Queen Ltd	0.0025	25%	1,917,000	$4,400,500.19
DW8	DW8 Limited	0.0025	25%	5,202,901	$5,903,045.25
BTR	Brightstar Resources	0.023	21%	190,000	$13,689,454.32
BLY	Boart Longyear	2.66	21%	20	$651,024,910.80
ROG	Red Sky Energy.	0.006	20%	4,000,000	$26,511,135.99
AGD	Austral Gold	0.042	17%	29,829	$22,043,208.71
HSC	HSC Technology Group	0.0105	17%	100,000	$19,607,754.03
AML	Aeon Metals Ltd.	0.028	17%	11,886,433	$26,242,338.55
AYT	Austin Metals Ltd	0.007	17%	626,712	$6,095,247.93
ERL	Empire Resources	0.007	17%	207,277	$6,231,432.56
FML	Focus Minerals Ltd	0.18	16%	239,939	$44,416,589.98
CPT	Cipherpoint Limited	0.004	14%	3,679,932	$2,902,071.40
PWN	Parkway Corp Ltd	0.008	14%	599,999	$15,492,963.12
AAU	Antilles Gold Ltd	0.04	14%	324,924	$14,552,449.35
OMX	Orange Minerals	0.068	13%	351,971	$2,937,842.82

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In Small Caps news, if you’ve been sitting on a pile of ReNu Energy (ASX:RNE) shares, welcome to outer space, because Australian super fund HESTA just poured $100 million worth of green energy investment fuel into ReNu’s rocket boosters and lit a match.

So far today, ReNu is up 132.5%, taking its market cap to about one-third of the investment that HESTA just dropped into its coffers to fund “development of Green Hydrogen Projects”. #FlyMeToTheMoon

Meanwhile, Arcadia Minerals (ASX:AM7) has sent out an announcement that it has found “significant geophysical anomalies indicating highly conductive lithium-rich aqueous brine pools identified from initial renditions of raw (uninterpreted) geophysical data at the Bitterwasser Lithium Project”.

Arcadia says that the largest of the anomalies measures 42km in length by 9km in width, and stresses that this is news based on “initial observations of raw uninterpreted renditions of data”.

“Doesn’t matter, buy anyway” the market says, so Arcadia’s up 32.7% this morning. #RawLikeSushi

And yesterday’s high-flyer SkyFii (ASX:SKF) seems to be staying the course on its way to the stratosphere, stacking on another 49.1% this morning following its announcement that the coulrophobia-inducing burger chain McDonald’s is trying out its all-seeing restaurant monitoring tech in eight of its outlets in the US.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for November 9 [intraday]:

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

Code	Company	Price	%	Volume	Market Cap
CLE	Cyclone Metals	0.002	-20%	45,958,896	$15,291,842
MTH	Mithril Resources	0.004	-20%	5,000,000	$14,701,165
RR1	Reach Resources Ltd	0.004	-20%	955,700	$9,550,253
CNJ	Conico Ltd	0.009	-18%	33,620,481	$16,004,649
99L	99 Loyalty Ltd.	0.015	-17%	4,000	$20,874,290
NVU	Nanoveu Limited	0.01	-17%	80,617	$3,369,243
ANX	Anax Metals Ltd	0.054	-16%	2,406,087	$25,960,202
BEZ	Besragoldinc	0.034	-15%	119,386	$10,084,549
LNU	Linius Tech Limited	0.003	-14%	1,500,000	$8,440,365
NWM	Norwest Minerals	0.048	-13%	922,727	$12,215,906
AUK	Aumake Limited	0.0035	-13%	2,894,000	$3,085,788
QXR	Qx Resources Limited	0.057	-12%	39,095,571	$57,321,051
FG1	Flynn Gold	0.11	-12%	31,000	$8,007,631
KZA	Kazia Therapeutics	0.11	-12%	638,341	$20,426,122
WTL	Wt Financial Grp Ltd	0.075	-12%	96,200	$27,810,799
RSH	Respiri Limited	0.039	-11%	23,440	$35,254,399
MCM	Mc Mining Ltd	0.195	-11%	148,587	$87,489,950
RLT	Renergen Limited	2.12	-11%	54,582	$60,457,928
DKM	Duketon Mining	0.315	-11%	18	$43,322,579
LYK	Lykos Metals	0.12	-11%	4,166	$8,424,000
TKM	Trek Metals Ltd	0.12	-11%	10,189,258	$42,579,335
ADG	Adelong Gold Limited	0.008	-11%	34,166	$3,988,682
HLO	Helloworld Travl Ltd	1.755	-10%	1,046,997	$303,854,576
5GG	Pentanet	0.26	-10%	65,311	$62,405,103
CMO	Cosmo Metals	0.135	-10%	18,341	$3,826,500