It’s been a bumpy ride on the ASX this morning, with the benchmark bouncing like a pair of two-up pennies on a wooden RSL floor, lurching between flat and -0.3% for a while before heading into lunch up by just 0.1%.
It’s the usual tale of woe for Materials and Energy stocks, and the now-familiar surge from InfoTech driving the market’s indecision about whether it wants to make any money today – so how the afternoon is set to play out is anyone’s guess.
But first, a quick news story from Canada to whet your lunchtime appetite, because authorities in British Columbia have been forced to launch a new public awareness campaign in an attempt to combat a soaring rise in sexually transmitted disease among the area’s senior citizens.
Jane Johanson, a spokesperson for the education campaign, says that in the past decade, STI rates for seniors over 65 have risen by 267% for chlamydia, 340% for syphilis and 388% for gonorrhoea across Canada.
First of all, ew.
Second of all, it’s kind of understandable – if you’ve ever been to an old folks’ assisted living facility, then you’d know that they are deep wells of sadness and boredom, which smell like pureed food and stale piss, and sound like the wails of the damned from the depths of hell, punctuated only by overly-cheery bingo callers bellowing numbers for hours on end.
But what you probably don’t know is that the advent of boner pills has exacerbated the unspoken phenomenon of old folks’ homes being hotbeds of sexual activity, with the oldies bumping uglies almost at will, even as they teeter on the brink of extinction.
And, given that they’re highly unlikely to be overly concerned about getting themselves knocked-up at the tender age of 70+, they’re equally as unlikely to be overly concerned about wearing a proverbial raincoat when the action gets hot and heavy.
In the spirit of the dreaded Public Awareness Campaign playbook, Canadian authorities are digging fairly deep into their bag of tricks to help spread the message – including by handing out lollies with wrappers featuring slogans including “Why did Grandpa get an STI test?”.
(Answer: to get to the other side).
Speaking of which, let’s go take a look at how the market’s been doing since we woke up this morning…
TO MARKETS
Local markets have opened lower this morning, falling 0.3% when the bell rang before rallying hard to get very close to break-even.
Then, around 11.30, the benchmark went full-on international football mode, diving like Didier Drogba to -0.2%, only to magically recover and – perfectly fine with no sign of any actual injury – bounce back by lunchtime to be up 0.1%.
Incredible scenes. I do hope he’s okay.
Anyway, in what (by now) should be a familiar refrain for 2023, it’s Materials and Energy that are holding the local market back this morning, down 1.9% and 0.5% respectively.
But adding value today, and our winner by a clear margin is InfoTech, which leapt at open and remained buoyant, thanks to some solid gains by Gefen International (ASX:GFN), up 25% on slim volume, and Pivotal Systems Corporation (ASX:PVS), up 17.6%.
Bucking the Materials sag at the top end of town, Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) has added a very solid 5.6% this morning on no ASX-related news.
NOT THE ASX
Local markets didn’t get much of a lead from Wall Street’s flat finish on Friday, where everything levelled out around 0.1% higher before the weekend.
Earlybird Eddy reports that the big news out of the US is that someone has finally pulled the plug on the badly beleaguered Bed, Bath and Beyond, admitting defeat and filing for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, chemical manufacturer Albemarle Corp plunged 10% after Chile plans to nationalise the country’s lithium industry, and said that contracts with Albemarle would not be renewed under a new public-private partnership model.
Chile, along with Australia and China, are in the top 3 lithium producers and under the new policy, the government would nationalise the country’s lithium supply where private companies will be forced to partner with the state to develop the local industry.
In Japan, the Nikkei is up 0.3% on news that famously cute’n’cuddly Tokyo theme park Sanrio Puroland – home to the ironically saccharine-sweet and super-twee Hello Kitty stable of characters – is set to be temporarily turned into a nightmarish hellscape for a couple of days in June.
Best part about the promotion is that the theme park is trying to sweeten the pot a little for any families who might be on the fence about dragging their tiny tots into a venue full of aggressively Japanese zombies by admitting children under the age of 2 for free.
So, if you’re searching for a mid-year family holiday that will deliver oodles of culture, noodles of flavour and will 100% scar your infant children for life, Tokyo should be top of your list.
Meanwhile in China, Shanghai has dipped 0.25%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is down 0.63%.
ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS
Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for April 13 [intraday]:
Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:
Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap CCE Carnegie Cln Energy 0.0015 50% 10,099,250 $15,642,574 OAU Ora Gold Limited 0.003 50% 200,373 $7,873,850 SIH Sihayo Gold Limited 0.003 50% 236,782 $12,204,256 CLE Cyclone Metals 0.002 33% 1,495,000 $13,623,972 GFN Gefen Int 0.025 25% 4,900 $1,362,003 ARE Argonaut Resources 0.0025 25% 44,866 $12,723,743 MTH Mithril Resources 0.0025 25% 951,820 $6,526,180 M24 Mamba Exploration 0.185 23% 1,523,807 $9,147,501 CHR Charger Metals 0.455 23% 884,584 $16,174,316 EDE Eden Inv Ltd 0.006 20% 4,020,574 $14,984,722 OSL Oncosil Medical 0.012 20% 6,411,373 $9,942,423 WML Woomera Mining Ltd 0.012 20% 258,295 $9,561,612 EDC Eildon Capital Group 0.93 18% 23,061,032 $37,320,087 PVS Pivotal Systems 0.01 18% 1,080,583 $2,125,120 BAT Battery Minerals Ltd 0.0035 17% 53,750 $8,848,327 FAU First Au Ltd 0.007 17% 4,300,985 $6,568,700 YPB YPB Group Ltd 0.0035 17% 1,031,250 $1,857,747 WMG Western Mines 0.66 15% 4,691,269 $28,204,900 BTR Brightstar Resources 0.016 14% 213,364 $11,656,804 FFF Forbidden Foods 0.016 14% 47,740 $1,861,728 LRL Labyrinth Resources 0.016 14% 670,650 $13,432,823 VSR Voltaic Strategic 0.024 14% 6,111,890 $6,453,304 AGR Aguia Res Ltd 0.041 14% 52,875 $15,618,753 WOO Wooboard Tech Ltd 0.017 13% 1,733,233 $3,449,323 FRM Farm Pride Foods 0.135 13% 65,780 $17,262,943
Leading the charts this morning is Mamba Exploration (ASX:M24), up 23.3% and continuing a no-news hot streak that has seen the small clay rare earths explorer surge 75% over the past five trading days, and +200% from lows of 7c/sh late March.
Also climbing on no fresh news is Charger Metals (ASX:CHR), up 22.9% this morning because it wanted to (apparently), while HSC Technologies (ASX:HSC) has added 20% after a sudden rush of interest ahead of the company’s up-coming AGM.
Last one before lunch: Eildon Capital (ASX:EDC) has jumped 17.7% to $0.93 a share, following news that Samuel Terry Asset Management has launched an off-market takeover offer to acquire all of the stapled (and, I assume, any in the folder being held in with paperclips) securities in EDC.
No prizes for guessing that the offer is for $0.93 a pop, which represents a 17.7% premium – or it did, before the market priced it in… I’ll dig into the offer a little more in Closing Bell later on this afternoon.
ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS
Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for April 13 [intraday]:
Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:
Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap GGX Gas2Grid Limited 0.001 -33% 241886 $6,115,653 PRM Prominence Energy 0.001 -33% 500000 $3,636,913 HXL Hexima 0.01 -23% 26000 $2,171,515 RGS Regeneus Ltd 0.012 -20% 587509 $4,596,554 AVM Advance Metals Ltd 0.008 -20% 62145 $5,820,441 EMU EMU NL 0.002 -20% 20000 $3,625,053 M4M Macro Metals Limited 0.004 -20% 189973 $9,785,389 NTM Nt Minerals Limited 0.008 -20% 3543295 $8,006,989 ROG Red Sky Energy 0.004 -20% 172230 $26,511,136 GGE Grand Gulf Energy 0.017 -19% 31701768 $34,865,188 DGR DGR Global Ltd 0.047 -18% 689491 $59,490,528 OSX Osteopore Limited 0.079 -17% 498037 $11,773,816 RC1 Redcastle Resources 0.011 -15% 522727 $3,715,194 RHT Resonance Health 0.041 -15% 70000 $22,120,895 NOX Noxopharm Limited 0.059 -14% 1126181 $20,164,419 LNU Linius Tech Limited 0.003 -14% 180000 $11,304,112 CNB Carnaby Resource Ltd 1.265 -14% 646097 $213,827,514 A3D Aurora Labs Limited 0.019 -14% 465000 $5,407,777 ID8 Identitii Limited 0.034 -13% 37450 $8,283,745 ICN Icon Energy Limited 0.007 -13% 769718 $6,144,109 MRD Mount Ridley Mines 0.0035 -13% 1482886 $31,139,531 MRQ Mrg Metals Limited 0.0035 -13% 500000 $7,943,675 REZ Resourc & En Grp Ltd 0.014 -13% 200000 $7,996,893 DDB Dynamic Group 0.215 -12% 189440 $32,965,474 BXN Bioxyne Ltd 0.022 -12% 65000 $16,641,135