ASX Small Caps Lunch Wrap: Who else’s positions are far too exposed today?

If you’re ever concerned about the future of humanity, then it’s best to avoid social media. It’s an online collection of vast stupidity, which – by design – takes the absolute worst ideas imaginable and makes them inexplicably popular.

It’s given us things like the Great Planking scourge, which saw dumb people encouraging each other to lie perfectly flat in increasingly dangerous situations, leading to countless serious injuries and even a few deaths, as morons plummeted from high-rise balconies around the world.

And don’t get us started on the Tide Pods Fiasco, which led to catastrophically stupid people eating brightly coloured plastic blobs of detergent, as if to show the world what it’s really like to have two acorns rattling in a tin can, in place of a functional brain.

These things happen because of The Influencers, a weird subset of humanity who are insanely popular for no appreciable reason, despite being vain and vapid, duck-lipped plastic surgery disasters, or muscle-bound village idiots who, in Ye Olden Days, would have quietly smothered by desperate parents for the shame they brought upon the family name.

And it’s The Influencers who are behind the Latest Big Thing on TikTok, the social media equivalent of huffing industrial quantities of solvents: highly addictive and capable of destroying brain cells at an alarmingly enormous rate.

It’s very easy to blame The Influencers for the dumbing down of humanity, which is why we’re doing it – and the TikTok trend du jour is a prime example of just how low the fruit is hanging.

For your consideration, we present the new trend of  “Perineum sunning”, aka “Static Nude Yoga for the Mentally Bereft”

It’s exactly what it sounds like, with adherents claiming utterly ridiculous and patently untrue health benefits of pointing the part of your body between the playground and the effluent pipe directly at the sun for extended periods of time.

And so, TikTok is now chock-full of people (some beautiful, but the vast majority absolutely not) lying legs-akimbo and arses elevated to the sun, raving about how sexually potent they are becoming by growing melanomas in places they’ll only ever see in a mirror.

This falls well into the category of “so stupid it hurts”, largely because it can, and will, hurt quite badly if you decide to whip off your undies and get in on the trend, by pointing your dangly bits at an enormous carcinogenic ball of flaming gas.

The inevitable outcome is a horrifying sunburn in a place where blisters mean you’re unlikely going to high on anyone’s list of preferred sexual partners.

For men in particular, prolonged direct exposure of the testes to the sun leaving them burnt to an eye-wateringly deep and shiny red leads to a condition we’re christening “cricket balls” – it’s like tennis elbow, but heaps, heaps worse.

So be advised, that despite claims that pointing your pink parts at the centre of the solar system will “energise” your goolies, you’re more likely to be unable to sit property for weeks than suddenly attain god-like sexual stamina.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

TO MARKETS

Speaking of massive red balls of failure, Aussie markets have fallen this morning, with market value lurching spastically within the range of 6,850 and 6,829 as the market struggles to pick which way it wants to turn.

Looking out over the sectors, it’s Materials (-1.89%), Utilities (-0.65%) and InfoTech (-0.58%) dragging things lower, while the best performing positive moves are in Financials (+0.81%), while most other sectors are treading water, avoiding sharks and trying to decide whether to swim for shore or wait to be rescued.

All-round super-smart guy who knows loads about the finance sector, Early Risin’ Eddy Sunarto has a top-shelf explainer on Not The Big Four banks, which you can read here.

The closest we’ve got to a Billionaire Bigshot winner is Life360 (ASX:360), up +7.8% this morning on no real market-moving news on the ASX, nor anything in normal news channels that would prompt a sudden spike in families requiring an app to track their childrens’ every move.

Big Money losers this morning include Omni Bridgeway (ASX:OBI) and Novonix (ASX:NVX).

NVX has crashed -6.0% after revealing a horrible bottom line for FY22, with a net loss for the period attributable to members topping $71 million, while OBI’s looking wan (sorry, not sorry) despite recording a profit of $6.5 million, a significant turnaround from the $18.4 million loss for FY21.

And hey! Sayona’s (ASX:SYA) back!! We haven’t seen them topping the charts for a few weeks now, and it’s always nice to spot a familiar face in the crowd. It’d be nice if it was under more positive circumstances, because its price is down -6.25%, back to swinging wildly like a T-20 tailender in true Sayona style.

Time to see what’s happening around the world, while studiously avoiding staring at The Influencers sunning every inch of themselves by the pool.

NOT THE ASX

In the US, a late rally early this morning saw the main US index finish with a flourish and  snap a 5-day loss-porn binge.

At the Thursday close in New York, the S&P 500 was up by 0.30% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended 0.26% lower.

Once again, it’s Our Man Eddy with the skinny on the US from overnight, including details on how the late rally seems to have been driven by new American jobless claims, which fell to a two-month low last week, with the total number of August layoffs in the states also beating forecasts to the upside.

“Most pundits were expecting to see signs of emerging weakness in the US labour market, as well as sluggish factory activity,” Eddy says, “but despite the hand-wringing over the state of the states last month, apparently none of that happened.”

In Asia, the markets are mixed this morning, with Japan’s Nikkei down -0.21% and Hong Kong faring even worse, down 0.70%.

However, Shanghai investors seem to have Pooh-Pooh’d the broader negative sentiment, climbing a tiny 0.09% as the morning wore on.

In commodities, precious metals have continued to sink like pirate treasure in thick quicksand, with gold (-0.02%), silver (-0.01%) and copper (-0.59%) all down.

Natural Gas prices have eased, falling 0.9% and oil has risen to the top like thick, black cream from a hellbound dairy cow, up +1.32%.

And out on the High Crypto Seas, where pirates go a-plunderin’ and tall tales of treasure abound, Bitcoin is continuing to flounder as the US dollar’s movements make the waves hard to navigate.

There’s tons more happening, and you can read about it here, in Rob “Captain Gingerbeard” Badman’s Mooners & Shakes.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for September 2 [intraday]:

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

With the materials sector so on the nose, it’s kind-of surprising to see a minerals explorer topping the winners’ list in Small Caps this morning – but there it is, Norwest Minerals (ASX:NWM), riding a +36.7% wave of happiness after announcing its found high-grade gold and copper at it’s confusingly-named Bali Project in Western Australia.

Also hitting the big time today is Cygnus Gold (ASX:CY5), building on gains from a solid half year accounts report on Tuesday with news that it’s appointed a couple of top shelf lithium gurus (Former SQM Chief Exploration Geologist Gareth Reynolds and WA lithium expert Mark Calderwood) to its exploration team ahead of a maiden drill program in Canada.

Not having a fabulous day is Advanced Human Imaging (ASX:AHI), after acquisition rumours that sent its price smashing through the roof by 48% on Tuesday turned out to be an an all-share acquisition of wellteq Digital Health – a move that seems to have disappointed the market, sending AHI back to whence it came, down -26.5% so far today.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for September 2 [intraday]:

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