ASX Small Caps Lunch Wrap: Who else feels like taking a joyride this morning?

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Aussie markets opened with a bang this morning, up 0.6%, taking us all for a brief, happy journey until it all went south. Again.

And speaking of joyrides, though, this morning brings news that is all about Peak Litigious America, after officials in St Louis, Missouri, have started making some serious noises about suing a couple of South Korean automakers.

The issue? Many Hyundai and Kia cars made prior to 2021 and sold into the US market, are ridiculously easy to steal – all you need is a screwdriver and the end of a USB cable, and you’re off to the races.

If that sounds too simple to be true, here’s how it works:

Now, before anyone gets all huffy about us being irresponsible and teaching young people how to go LARPing their GTA-style urges, consider a few things:

• This is not a new method of stealing cars
• It took us less than 2 minutes to find on YouTube.
• This does not work on Kia or Hyundai cars sold in Australia (more on that later)

It’s become such a problem in some American cities that gangs have cropped up, calling themselves “Kia Boys” (or a wide range of misspelt variations on that theme), who like to steal cars, film what they’re up to and then post their exploits on social media.

There are hundreds of videos on Youtube showing low-powered, sensible cars involved in moderately high-speed police pursuits, all set to earache inducing music because we’re old and don’t understand the rubbish the kids are listening to these days.

There’s also loads of them on TikTok, but we’re not going to link to TikTok because it is digital cancer and riddled with Chinese spyware. Allegedly.

Anyhow… the problem is contained to countries that didn’t have legislation in place to force automakers to include engine immobilisation devices on their cars before they were sold.

Australia, in a rare fit of successful forward planning, made engine immobilisers compulsory in all new vehicles since 2001 – so before anyone reads this and decides to steal their hairdresser’s car, don’t bother. It won’t work.

Also, it’s illegal. So… yeah. Don’t.

St Louis, however, is reportedly still working on its lawsuit over how easy it is to steal these cars, and it’s hard to tell exactly what effect that’s going to have on efforts to clamp down on the rash of thefts.

But one thing is certain – no matter what does come of the lawsuit, it doesn’t look like there’s a fix to this at all in the United States because the whole thing is turning into a self-sustaining circle of theft and greed.

With all the cars being stolen and stripped, there’s now an enormous market for spare parts to fix cars once they’ve been recovered. And that means more cars are being stolen and stripped to feed the black market for car parts.

So while the authorities are moaning about the number of cars being stolen and all that malarkey, the car thieves have built themselves a self-sustaining – albeit highly illegal – business, where they steal and strip cars to sell parts to people whose car had previously been stolen and stripped, in a glorious cycle of inner-city capitalism.

But enough about stealing cars – let’s go take a look at how honest people make their money.

TO MARKETS

Australian markets have put up a rare show of defiance this morning, thumbing their noses at Wall Street and giving local investors something to cheer about.

The ASX 200 benchmark shot up 0.6% when the bell rang, eased significantly in subsequent trade then rallied a little to hit midday up 0.4% from open, before sinking below break-even. #sadface.

Across the sectors, and it’s more of a mixed bag than your luggage when you get tossed by Customs trying to bring a boogie board into Bali.

Relatively strong performances by Materials (+1.33%) and Industrials (+0.70%) have been offset by some dour, limp and lifeless showings from Energy (-0.69%) and Real Estate (-0.56%).

There are some Big Bizness winners today, most notably Core Lithium (ASX:CXO), which has enjoyed a 5.7% boost this morning off the back of the official opening of its Finniss Lithium mine in the Northern Territory.

Also putting on some beef this morning was Johns Lyng Group (ASX:JLG), bouncing back 5.8% this morning after shedding more than 15% over the previous week, a drop that had been helped along by the confidence-shaking sell-off of 400,000 shares by Managing Director and Group CEO Scott Didier.

On the losing side of the ledger, Pointsbet (ASX:PBH) is down 5.7% this morning and in a slide since announcing a partnership with 1/ST Technology, a business division of The Stronach Group, North America’s dominant Thoroughbred horse racing company.

That is, I must say, a weird and slightly unpleasant coincidence, and I would like to point out that I, Gregor Stronach, have nothing to do with the racing industry, or anyone losing money on Pointsbet.

That said, I look forward to your angry emails, because at least one of you is going to send one. I can feel it in my bones.

Perhaps it’s time to go overseas until this whole thing blows over.

NOT THE ASX

In the US, Wall Street had a lousy night, because that’s what Wall Street apparently just loves to do – turn up to the party, get drunk, punch a waiter and pass out in a pot plant.

The Dow was once again the more resilient of the majors, down just 0.32% against the S&P’s 0.75% and the bottom-heavy Nasdaq’s 1.04% falls.

As Christian “I’m Eddy Sunarto’s stunt-double” Edwards points out, the US CPI is the next hurdle for all involved in the equity game. That’s due on Thursday, followed by the Fed’s next rate policy decision on November 2 – it’s hard to imagine any sustained buying until these major hurdles have been overcome.

And China’s going to be one to watch over the next little while, with COVID-cases resurgent just ahead of Sunday’s 20th Party Congress, lockdowns looming, the property market remaining a ginormous question.

Plus, the US is really starting to squeeze hard on tech transfers, trade and the future control of the global semiconductor empire, so it’s anyone’s guess how things are going to play out there.

One thing we do know – Chinese Supremo Xi Jinping is just days away from being appointed (by himself, which is always a good sign) Mega-Giant-El-Presidente-Supremo-Grand-Wizard For Life.

If you were thinking of sending him a congratulatory postcard, today’s the day to get it in the mail so it arrives in time for him to read it out at the post-ceremony dinner, which this year is going to be Yum Cha, served on the back of the Chinese peasant class. Delicious.

And if that’s not enough for Xi to be worried about, he’s now got Tesla gasbag Elon Musk weighing in on international politics again, this time with his totally unsolicited take on Taiwan.

Musk (on Twitter, natch) recently said that China and everyone else would ideally “figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy.”

Both sides of that particular argument have said what a profoundly stupid idea it is. So there’s that.

While we’re in Asia, it’s not fabulous news there, market-wise.

The big story is out of Japan, where the Nikkei is in a bit of a struggle with gravity, plunging hard (alongside Korea) amid regional economic fears that are driving risk sentiment into the sub-sub-sub basement of Asian markets.

The Nikkei is down 1.62% at the time of writing, and has been falling steadily since open.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong is down 0.27% and SHanghai’s dropped 0.12% in early trade.

Over at the commodities desk, energy fortunes are up and down like it’s pension day at the pokies.

Oil is down 0.03% and gas is up 1.6%, while all the shiny things are rising, with gold up 0.17%, silver up 0.28% and copper has added 0.42%.

It’s bad news for anyone hoarding Weetbix, though, with wheat dropping 0.51% on news that breakfast finishes at 10am sharp. No exceptions.

Aaaand, in the World of Crypto, where tokens have nothing to do with race, Bitcoin and ETH have given up recent gains and then some, shedding 2.57% and 4.31% respectively.

As always, you can get all the details from Rob “Full English, extra sausage” Badman at Mooners & Shakers.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for October 11 [intraday]:

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

There’s a bit to unpack here, but the gist of it looks like this:

Extensive massive, semi-massive, highly disseminated and disseminated sulphides were intersected from 32m to 423.40m (downhole), and sulphidic quartz veins from 43.5m to 412.1m.

A total of 358.37m of sulphides (visual estimation) was intercepted, inclusive of:

• 4.26m massive sulphide averaging 88% volume estimate (including: 1.44m from 209.68-
• 211.12m @90% estimated volume, and 1.29m from 253.41-254.70m @95% estimated volume);
• 4.96m semi massive sulphide averaging 55% volume estimate (including: 1.60m from 154.60-156.20m @50% estimated volume, and 0.81m from 163.10-163.91m @55% estimated volume);
• 7.60m matrix/net, blebby & stringer sulphide averaging 40% volume estimate (including: 3.3m from 149.40-152.70m @40% estimated volume, and 2.2m from 194.30-196.50m @40% estimated volume);
• 136.16m highly disseminated sulphide averaging 17% volume estimate (including: 15.5m from 115.00-130.50m @15% estimated volume, and 12.65m from 350.25-362.90m @12% estimated volume); and
• 205.39m disseminated sulphide averaging 5% volume estimate (including: 16.31m from 302.48-318.79 @3% estimated volume, and 11.75m from 260.92-272.67m @5% estimated volume).

That’s from one hole – so of course everyone’s pretty excited, and Dundas is trading 42.6% higher as a result.

On an eyebrow-raising tear this morning is Shree Minerals (ASX:SHH), which has shot up 38.8% with more than $428,000 of turnover on what was a sub-penny stock, on absolutely zero news. SHH indeed. #ElvisPresley #SuspiciousMinds

And RemSense (ASX:REM) has climbed 21.8% on news that it’s hit a major milestone, with the company announcing that RemSense virtualplant is now integrated with the IBM Maximo Application Suite (MAS) following a joint development by the two companies.

There are a few companies taking a beating today. Of particular note is Baby Bunting (ASX:BBN), down 22.5% on completely not-real news that its plans to release a range of intrauterine luminescent stickers to decorate the inside of the womb and keep your unborn baby stimulated has been rejected by health officials as the dumbest idea they’ve ever heard.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for October 11 [intraday]:

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

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