ASX Small Caps Lunch Wrap: Who else is dying for a designer sleeping bag today?

Aussie markets have opened with a 0.6% pop this morning, wobbled around like a peg-legged pirate with a termite problem, settling on a 0.5% gain by the time our hunger got the better of us and we waddled off to lunch.

Speaking of lunch, there’s some morbidly interesting news from Sumatra, a part of the world that is famous for no longer having tigers, and being home to dozens of bewildered dyslexic sex addicts searching for a copy of the Sumatra Kuma… and some truly, epically huge snakes.

“How forkin’ big are the snakes in Sumatra?” I’m pretending to hear you ask.

Well – scientifically speaking, they get large enough to swallow people. We know this, because that’s precisely what happened to a 54-year-old grandmother, identified only as Jahnah, who disappeared on her way home from work on the weekend.

A search turned up some clothing and her work tools, sending locals on the hunt for a culprit – and when news of a huge snake looking fatter in the middle than at the ends reached the search party, their worst fears were confirmed.

The snake was captured, with the woman – in one piece – still inside.

It’s not a way to go that I’d wish on anyone, but it does serve as a reminder that Australians share this continent with some super-dangerous critters – but we can count our blessings that the snakes we have aren’t large enough to swallow us whole whenever they’re feeling peckish.

Speaking of finding oneself in The Belly of the Beast, it’s well past time that we checked on what the markets are doing today.

 

TO MARKETS

The ASX hit the ground running this morning, leaping out of the starting barrier with a 0.6% burst of ebullient gusto, which lasted about 10 minutes before local investors gassed out and the index began to lurch like a drunken sailo

The early boost in local markets came despite a bit of a shocker in the US overnight, which saw Meta shares take a sound and richly deserved beating, collapsing 18% in extended trading on piss-weak earnings forecasts.

Sector-wise, Consumer Discretionary has eased from an early 1.6% rise to around 0.84%, leaving Energy (+2.02%) and Materials (+1.84%) to do the heavy lifting as we head into lunch.

The whole picture would look a lot nicer, but for a weak performance from Financials which – to be fair – is recovering pretty well from a 2.4% fall earlier today.

Snorting caviar from the backsides of supermodels this morning, it’s two big movers from Materials in the news – Lynas Rare Earths (ASX:LYN) and Sandfire (ASX:SFR) have climbed 8.4% and 7.3% respectively after releasing solid quarterlies today.

Things are shaping up an interesting ways overseas, so let’s go take a quick squiz over the fence to see how the neighbours are getting on.

 

NOT THE ASX

The aforementioned bed-pooping by Zuckerberg and Co. sent ripples through Wall Street’s tech sector – an 18% chunk of the world’s biggest mass surveillance system social media platform is obviously gonna make some noise when it lands on the abattoir floor, and investors heard from miles away.

Meta’s price dropped like a pole-axed geriatric after the company announced that its Q4 earnings are likely to be a bit shit.

But even that statement needs some context: The market was expecting Meta to grab somewhere around US$32.5 billion, but Meta says that total’s about $2 billion on the ambitious side of incorrect.

Turns out investors don’t like it when there’s money left on the table, and they stormed the exits faster than if they’d been told that the building’s on fire.

The Nasdaq closed lower by 2.04% – and that’s independent of Meta blurting into its Huggies (they announced and slumped after hours, as all good MegaTech companies do). So with Meta’s result weighing on Wall Street’s open tomorrow, there’s a good chance we’ll see another drop when the bell rings.

The S&P fell 0.74%, and the Dow reclined lazily on the chaise-lounge stuffed with Old Money, adding just 0.01%.

In Asia, The Nikkei’s having a flat start to the morning after the panoply of radioactive monsters held a stop-work meeting over Japan’s alleged use of non-conventional armaments in their ongoing conflict for control of Tokyo.

In Hong Kong, tech stocks have helped markets to a handy 3.0% round of post-brekky star-jumps, a much needed boost on the tail of recent steep losses.

And in Shanghai, markets have continued paying tortoise to Hong Kong’s hare, up a steady 0.22%.

In CryptoBizarro World, I am reliably informed that things are pumping in the world of almost-money, with BTC, ETH and Doge all on the rise because Elon Musk brought a porcelain sink to a business meeting at Twitter. Or something. Take a look for yourself…

 

Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022

Criiiiiiinge.

As hard as crypto in general is to understand sometimes, though, the one man with his finger on the pulse is Rob “I’m taking an absolute bath, here” Badman, who has penned today’s Mooners & Shakers, despite currently being the friendliest hostile work environment in the world.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for October 27 [intraday]:

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After yesterday’s retina-detaching take-off by WA1 Minerals (ASX:WA1) – which closed out day better than 400% (not a typo… four hundred…) up – I reckon it’s safe to say that risk on is higher than Ozzy Osbourne in the 70s.

Today’s rocket ride, though, has been brought to you (so far) by KAbo Resources (ASX:KOB), which has torn the covers off news that it’s staked mining claims covering approximately 145 km2 at its new Whitlock Lithium Project in southern Manitoba.

Koba’s stake is along strike from the Tanco Mine, which has a lithium reserve of 7.3Mt @ 2.76% Li2O1, and somewhere near three other healthy holes in the ground with reserves of 10.2Mt @ 1.4% Li2 O2, 3.6Mt @ 1.28% Li2 O3 and 1.1Mt @ 1.51% Li2 O4.

Koba’s only done perfunctory drilling at the site to date. It’s up 136.6%, because of course it is.

But… Melbourne Cup Day is early next week, so maybe investors are ust limbering up their punting muscles to avoid serious injury when the bookies swallow all their cash at Flemington on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, rent.com.au (ASX:RNT) has put out 12 announcements this morning – those real estate fellas really do love their paperwork – adding 29.0% for the morning as well.

And the aforementioned WA1 is still rising, up another 24.2% after everyone who wasn’t watching close enough yesterday FOMO’d in to help support what looked like an untenable high water mark.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for October 27 [intraday]:

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