Another day, another problem for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, an outfit that has had more than its fair share of the limelight in the past few weeks.

This time, however, it’s not because they’ve been busy kicking in massively expensive doors and rifling through former US President Donald Trump’s 4-acre undies drawer in search of state secrets and a well-thumbed diary of Emmanuel Macron’s sexual adventures.

This time, it’s the Feds on the hook for hoarding documents, after it has steadfastly refsued to hand over its files on well-known Musical Terror Group, The Monkees.

Yeah… if you’re of a particular vintage, you’ll recognise them as the saccharin-sweet idiots whose manufactured pop group got up to mindless shenanigans on TV every Saturday morning.

Granted, they were inexplicably popular in the late 1960s – but apparently caught the eye of the FBI’s head honcho J. Edgar Hoover, who took a break from trying on frocks to order the band be followed closely by informants sent to look for signs of Communism.

Apparently, the FBI was concerned to hear that the group had been getting a bit too Counter Culture at its performances, showing anti-war slogans during a couple of their late-60s protest songs.

But we’re willing to bet that the band’s audience was too busy screaming and throwing damp undies at the band’s lead singer, pint-sized heart-throb Davey Jones, to register the ‘subliminal Anti-American propaganda’ hidden deeeeeeep inside the bubble-gum pop blaring from the stage.

Today, the only band member still on this side of the pearly gates, Mickey Dolenz, has had to resort to filing a lawsuit to get his hands on the FBI files from that time, after Mulder and Scully deemed them too hot to release.

No doubt Dolenz will eventually get what he’s after – but if recent events are any indication, they’ll be so heavily redacted that they’d only be useful as a sight screen at a one-dayer against England at the Gabba.

We’re kinda hoping Dolenz is successful in his quest, mostly out of morbid curiosity to see what kind of dirt the FBI thought was useful to keep hidden away for all these years.

But we’re willing to bet it’s evidence that Simon Cowell is a time-travelling alien, sent to Earth to make all humans progressively dumber by making untalented people famous, starting with The Monkees.

 

TO MARKETS

Aussie markets opened down this morning, following Wall Street on the next leg of its world-famous “How to Lose Buckets of Money” walking tour.

The benchmark dropped 56 points the moment wait staff closed the lid on the breakfast buffet, before rallying somewhat to head towards lunch around about -0.3% for the morning.

Looking across the sectors, and we’re back into a now-familiar pattern of Energy (-3.40%), Materials (-1.49%) and Utilities (-1.00%) being the unbearable weight on the back of the ASX donkey, dragging down the numbers and stubbornly refusing to play nice.

There’s no real standout from those in a positive frame of mind, although it’s worth noting that the Telcos seem intent on undoing the appalling results of recent days, climbing +0.78% – which is roughly akin to someone sending you an already-opened box of chocolates to say “sorry I slept with your wife”.

Top the Heavyweight winners this morning is Webjet (ASX:WEB), after filing an ASX announcement that screamed “Bookings Roaring Back”. Investors like that sort of dynamic and hip language, buying into the hype to the tune of an +8.8% rise.

Webjet is also happy that it’s profitable (so far) for FY23, which the company puts down to its strategy to deal with the pandemic. To wit: “a mixture of 515 job reductions, four-day working weeks and pay cuts.”

“When travel stopped, we did the hard work necessary to transform our businesses to ensure they would emerge more efficient, more profitable and with higher market share when travel returned,” Webjet says.

Leading Losers this morning were TabCorp (ASX:TAH), following a raft of complaints from jockeys over untrue nonsense that the company’s new mascot is a wooden clown holding a sign that reads “You must be at least this tall to invest”.

And Dicker Data (ASX:DDR) has continued to get dickered, drooping another 5.8% this morning and fast approaching a flaccid $10 per share low.

It’s time to hit Webjet up for a cheeky airfare (it’s okay – they can afford it, apparently) for a whirlwind tour of the overseas markets.

 

NOT THE ASX

As previously mentioned, Wall Street’s been pantsed again while we slept, with the Nasdaq down 1.12%, the S&P falling 1.10% and the Dow sagging 0.96%.

Early Risin’ Eddy Sunarto has reported that New York Fed Reserve Bank President John Williams added to investor nervousness when he told the WSJ the Fed was “absolutely committed” to achieving the 2% inflation goal.

“The situation is very challenging. Inflation is very high. The economy has a lot of crosscurrents. I do think it will take a few years, but we’re going to get that done,” Williams said.

It’s as if no one learned a bloody thing from Jerome Powell’s 8-minute wrecking ball at Jackson’s Hole last week – if these Fed guys could learn to stop talking for a while, Wall Street might be able to have a nice day, for once.

In Asia, investors are singing from the same hymn book – it’s the one with all the sad songs this week – with Hong Kong dropping a dirge-like -1.39% so far today.

Shanghai’s also on the nose, down 0.82% and The Nikkei has shrunk 0.57% on reports of strike action by the country’s largest Ninja Union over the spiralling cost of throwing stars.

And over at Crypto Crossing, the lovely little farm that investors tell loved ones their money has gone when they can’t bear telling them the truth, Intrepid Reporter Rob Badman has the cracking yarn of someone at crypto.com fat-fingering a $100 refund and dropping a cool $10 million into someone’s account.

Oh, how we laughed.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for August 31 [intraday]:

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To Small Caps, where it’s not huge money but by golly it loves to dance, and it’s everyone holding Desert Metals (ASX:DM1) shares that are rubbing their hands with glee, as the rare earths digger continued to spike faster than a roomful of Weight Watchers at a toothpick buffet.

Yesterday, DM1 posted a 23% jump for the day, which for most people would have been enough – but that’s been followed with an even bigger hike this morning, with Desert up 44% this morning as investors pile on.

Also flying up the charts, but for no particular reason, is Narryer Metals (ASX:NYM), which has gone soaring by +43.5% this morning, despite not even a whiff of news anywhere.

Narryer does have some REE results due out any day now from Portable XRF testing of historical drill hole samples stored in the South Australian State Core Library (limit of 3 cores per person, due back in 7 days or it’s a $2 fine per core in late fees) – which may account for the sudden burst of interest.

Not having a great Wednesday, though, is DGL Group (ASX:DGL), after releasing what seems to be an unremarkable, but positive, report on FY22 and news that the company is set to spend $26 million on four strategic acquisitions in the near future.

The market has ingested this info and spat out an emasculating -26% drubbing before lunch today, which is gonna sting for quite some time.

Also belting out some karaoke in a completely different key to the backing track today is DroneShield (ASX:DRO), after reporting that its net loss attributable to members for FY22 had climbed a gonad-mashing 990% to $4.9 million.

This, naturally, has been deemed ‘completely uncool, verging on bogus’ by investors, who have stormed the exits leaving a -17% crater in their wake.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for August 31 [intraday]:

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