Australian markets have opened lower this morning, bucking recent Friday trends and basically just making everyone a bit grumpy ahead of the weekend.

When the buzzer went to alert us all it was time to shuffle single-file to the cafeteria and collect a tray of unidentifiable slop for our lunch, the benchmark was at -0.7% and things were looking pretty grim.

The morning’s other massive downer is news that music legend Burt Bacharach has tinkled his final ivory, passing away of natural causes (“too old to stay alive”) at his home in Los Angeles, aged 94.

Bacarach was, undoubtedly, an absolute titan in the songwriting world, with a string of massive hits dating back to the 1950s, including an enormous quantity of the earworms that get stuck in your head for weeks after you hear them over the speakers while shopping for a fancy new toaster at David Jones.

I won’t bore you with a complete discography, or even a patchy, hastily-written biography – mostly because you can hear pretty much all his classics right here, and his entire life story is on Wikipedia somewhere, probably.

Instead, I’d like to leave you with a tribute to the great man – a rare live performance from 2010, when the Legendary Maestro teamed up with cardboard juggernaut Visy CEO Anthony “I’m a Big Deal at the Box Factory” Pratt, to take one of Bacharach’s most enduringly popular songs and slowly, methodically butcher it, to the utter dismay of anyone with functional ears.

 


To the spirit of Mr Bacarach: Love, mercy and gratitude for all of the wonderful music you gifted the world.

To Mr Pratt: No. Just… no.

 

TO MARKETS

As we bumble into a well-earned lunch break today, the benchmark is down by more than 0.7%, and trending lower – ever lower – which is making many people unhappy.

Consumer Staples is the last remaining nostril sucking in oxygen above the waterline today, up a measly 0.28% but working hard as investors look for positive value somewhere on the bourse today.

InfoTech (-1.93%), Telcos (-1.50%) and Utilities (-1.50%) are weighing heaviest this morning, while the influential Finances sector is middling around -0.50%.

Bucking their sector trends, large cappers Imugene (ASX:IMU) and Boss Energy (ASX:BOE) are on the rise today, with BOE rising 5.9% for no particular reason.

Maybe it just wanted to, and who are we to judge? It can do whatever it wants… there’s no kink-shaming here.

Meanwhile, Imugene has added 5.6% this morning on great news that it has received a Notice of Allowance from the US Patent and Trademark Office for patent application number 16/498,929, related to its B-cell activating immunotherapy PD1-Vaxx, currently in clinical development for non-small cell lung cancer.

 

NOT THE ASX

In overseas news, Wall Street started the session well on the heels of cooling German inflation and some positive earnings led by Disney shares.

However, the Good Times were short-lived and by close, the three major indexes were down – S&P 500 by 0.85%, the Dow by 0.74%, and tech-heavy Nasdaq by 1%, Earlybird Eddy Sunarto reports.

Disney’s rise of 1.5% followed a strong profit beat and the announcement of a major restructuring that will slash $5.5 billion in costs, including cutting its workforce by 7,000 jobs.

No word on how many Mouseketeers and high school kids in gross-smelling costumes that 7,000 job cut figure includes, however there is one high-profile name whose connections with Disney look all but finished forever.

Needlessly aggressive nerds around the world are dismayed by what looks like the end of animator, director, producer and voice actor Justin Roiland’s lucrative deal with Disney’s 20th Television Animation after reports of his arrest over serious domestic abuse allegations surfaced this week.

In other US tech news, Yahoo also announced it will lay off 1,000 employees and Twitter execs have been grilled by Congress over the company’s decision in 2020 to block users from sharing a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

This came as the Twitter platform went down for about 90 minutes yesterday, informing users around the globe they had “reached their daily limit on posts” – possibly foreshadowing Twitter boss Elon Musk’s latest heroic brainwave that will undoubtedly prove to be about as popular as a gross “handsy” uncle at a distant relative’s funeral.

In Japanese market news, the Nikkei is up 0.67% this morning, as Japan celebrates the latest in arcade gaming trends – a claw machine that dispenses large golden eggs, each one containing a vacuum-sealed package of “instant stew” made with the finest cuts of Wagyu beef.

In China, markets are down as well – Shanghai has fallen 0.12% and the Hang Seng is down 0.80% in early trade.

There’s no news from the Maltese Stock Exchange today, as it is closed while the nation celebrates the Feast of St Paul’s Shipwreck. I’m not sure what St Paul did to make Malta angry, but they got a holiday out of it, so I guess no one there is complaining too hard.

In crypto, it’s looking like a rough ride for crypto exchange Kraken, which has been slapped with a whopping $43 million fine and was forced to shut down its coin staking service, after the SEC went HAM in the midst of its investigation into the sale of “unregistered securities”.

Stockhead’s very own barbecue king, Rob “I Prefer Steaking” Badman, has the details and a wrap of whatever the hell else crypto’s up to this time, over at Mooners & Shakers.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for February 10 [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
VPR Volt Power Group 0.002 100% 262,253 $10,716,208
SOV Sovereign Cloud Hldg 0.175 35% 57,000 $22,106,588
DCX Discovex Res Ltd 0.004 33% 10,000,000 $9,907,704
MGT Magnetite Mines 0.765 30% 797,133 $44,744,543
CZL Cons Zinc Ltd 0.022 29% 20,377,437 $8,200,083
EMU EMU NL 0.005 25% 5,031,863 $2,749,072
IEC Intra Energy Corp 0.006 20% 25,000 $3,528,908
XTC Xantippe Res Ltd 0.006 20% 4,904,362 $51,725,174
MKL Mighty Kingdom Ltd 0.048 17% 524,827 $13,375,003
AGD Austral Gold 0.056 17% 9,080 $29,390,945
CXU Cauldron Energy Ltd 0.007 17% 142,857 $5,589,408
PCL Pancontinental Energy 0.014 17% 29,966,088 $90,650,674
ALA Arovella Therapeutic 0.037 16% 4,344,991 $24,129,110
ADX ADX Energy Ltd 0.008 14% 12,883,680 $24,631,875
AYT Austin Metals Ltd 0.008 14% 450,000 $7,111,123
ARO Astro Resources NL 0.07 13% 49,964 $16,709,034
NSX NSX Limited 0.062 13% 129,334 $22,017,281
FFT Future First Tech 0.027 13% 14,995 $17,036,078
VBC Verbrec Limited 0.135 13% 58,000 $26,577,140
LRL Labyrinth Resources 0.019 12% 263,198 $16,311,285
TAR Taruga Minerals 0.019 12% 1,471,099 $12,002,455
NNL Nordic Nickel 0.4 11% 48,497 $21,045,601
ADG Adelong Gold Limited 0.01 11% 50,000 $4,804,401
IPB IPB Petroleum Ltd 0.01 11% 600,000 $4,107,329
SIS Simble Solutions 0.011 10% 727,272 $5,329,507
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It’s a tale of minnows and middlers in the winner’s circle today, with Consolidated Zinc (ASX:CZL) up 32.4% after lobbing an extremely newsworthy announcement about its now-infamous Plomosas project near Chihuahua, Mexico.

The Plomosas project is most widely known due to a major security incident in late 2021, when a group of actual Mexican bandits backed a truck up to the gates, locked workers and security staff in a shipping container and made off with 90 tonnes of zinc and lead concentrate, valued at around US$90,000.

This time, however, it’s much better news – CZL has sold the project in its entirety to Canadian miner Impact Silver for US$6 million – $3 million in Impact Silver shares and the other $3 million in cold, hard cash.

Also on a charge today is Magnetite Mines (ASX:MGT), up 28.8% this morning on the heels of yesterday’s announcement that the Iron Peak mineral resource has been significantly upgraded at the company’s flagship Razorback Iron Ore project.

The company reported that mass recovery significantly has increased from 16.8% to 19.4%, while tonnage rose from 419 Mt to 503 Mt.

“MGT has systematically increased the scale of its flagship Razorback Iron Ore Project over recent years, creating the long-life, large-scale mine plan needed to support investment in opening South Australia’s massive but undeveloped Braemar iron province,” Magnetite CEO Tim Dobson said.

“Now we have turned our eye to improved product quality to not only enhance early-year project economics, but to also target the production of premium-grade DR products increasingly in demand by the decarbonising iron and steel sector.”

Percentage-wise, Sovereign Cloud Holdings (ASX:SOV) is nominally at the top of today’s chart, reporting a 34.6% climb on razor-thin volume, while Pancontinental Energy (ASX:PCL) has extended its winning streak for the month, adding 16.6% today to bring its monthly climb to 75.5%.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for February 10 [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
AO1 Assetowl Limited 0.001 -33% 44,436,581 $2,358,195
AQX Alice Queen Ltd 0.0015 -25% 1,500,000 $4,400,500
FXG Felix Gold Limited 0.12 -20% 56,388 $12,474,960
AVW Avira Resources Ltd 0.002 -20% 83 $5,334,475
CAV Carnavale Resources 0.004 -20% 18,943,629 $13,667,759
NTL New Talisman Gold 0.016 -20% 1,442,612 $6,396,145
XST Xstate Resources 0.002 -20% 50,752,074 $8,037,954
SVL Silver Mines Limited 0.1625 -17% 23,692,955 $251,907,268
MCT Metalicity Limited 0.0025 -17% 6,246,665 $10,476,118
TD1 Tali Digital Limited 0.0025 -17% 120,000 $8,325,467
ADS Adslot Ltd. 0.009 -14% 2,127,301 $23,145,658
CLZ Classic Min Ltd 0.006 -14% 3,345,581 $7,293,594
PNX PNX Metals Limited 0.003 -14% 3,500 $15,554,202
MHK Metalhawk. 0.13 -13% 134,630 $9,710,309
IXU Ixup Limited 0.026 -13% 78,950 $30,887,159
MPA Mad Paws 0.14 -13% 910,297 $48,001,208
ST1 Spirit Technology 0.066 -12% 402,050 $49,854,268
AFL Af Legal Group Ltd 0.11 -12% 583,100 $9,820,177
SMX Security Matters 0.185 -12% 34,204 $35,249,462
TI1 Tombador Iron 0.023 -12% 653,810 $55,561,542
ATH Alterity Therap Ltd 0.008 -11% 208,084 $21,747,766
DXN DXN Limited 0.004 -11% 100,332 $7,745,917
LSR Lodestar Minerals 0.004 -11% 30,000 $7,822,968
AL3 Aml3D 0.1025 -11% 962,857 $21,627,294
LER Leaf Res Ltd 0.017 -11% 386,864 $34,390,739
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