Aussie markets have opened higher this morning, as investors shook of any fears that today’s date – Friday the 13th, for those that might have missed the memo – may have been somewhat portentious.

After an encouraging 0.5% jump out of the gate, by lunch time the benchmark was cruising along just a smidge over +1.0% – an encouraging sign that today could turn out to be much better than the more superstitious among us may have feared.

But first, what better way to celebrate the year’s first Black Friday, than by tearing the covers off a shiny black piece of automotive genius, along with a sentence that I would have happily bet $1 million I would never, ever have written in my lifetime:

The Taliban has launched Afghanistan’s first supercar.

And, here it is – The inimitable Mada 9, in all of its sleek, Batmobile Black glory – in what is without doubt the single greatest supercar photo of all time.

 

asx lunch taliban supercar
Taliban officials are clearly ecstatic after the Mada 9 supercar was revealed. Pic: Afghanistan Technical Vocational Institute/ENTOP

 

Of course, it’s not the actual Taliban that has developed the car – the impossibly harsh and famously tech-fearing, Luddite government of Afghanistan is taking the credit for the hard work of a team of 30 people from 30 engineers from Kabul’s Afghanistan Technical Vocational Institute, and ENTOP – apparently a private organisation that specialises in making the seemingly impossible happen.

 

 

There are some details that show that the Mafa 9 is unmistakably, 100% Pure Afghanistan, though.

Unlike most modern supercars, which sport incredibly complicated and massively powerful engines, the Mada 9 is powered by a 2.0-litre donk someone pinched from a 22-year-old Toyota Corolla hatchback – an homage, perhaps, to Afghanistan’s long-running love affair with the Japanese marque.

Toyota HiLux utes remain, quite famously, immensely popular in that part of the world, in part because they are (for want of a better term) pretty much bulletproof.

And beneath the slick exterior lies an obviously wonky lightweight frame, with the unmuffled Corolla engine rear-mounted, producing maybe about 150 horsepower and clouds of exhaust smoke, as this video from the high-tech Mada 9 workshop in Kabul shows.

 

 

 

TO MARKETS

Australian investors are enjoying a great start to the final day of the week this morning, with the benchmark up around 1.0% higher, following a decent session on Wall Street overnight.

Today, it’s the Energy sector’s turn to provide the juice to propel the benchmark higher, adding 2.03% over the course of the morning, with Consumer Discretionary (+1.34%) and Financials (1.27%) setting off in hot pursuit.

The only red blot on the copybook this morning has been a weak performance by Consumer Staples, which has fallen 0.2% since the markets opened.

Sitting up above the Billion Dollar mark, Life360 (ASX:360) is the only one on the leaderboard this morning, up 9.8% this morning on news that the company has produced “an accelerated plan to achieve positive operating cash flow and Adjusted EBITDA”.

 

NOT THE ASX

It was a happy day in the United States overnight, following the release of widely-anticipated CPI figures there showed definite signs that US inflation is cooling quite rapidly.

However, as Stockhead’s inimitable Man on the Ground in Europe Christian Edwards points out, “the news is good, but the war’s not over.”

Data released overnight show that the US CPI rose 6.5%, down significantly from the month before, but still a powerful description of the cost-of-living disaster for not just American households, but the rest of the world where these inflationary figures are gruesomely familiar.

But, Wall Street took it as a good sign that things are looking rosy again – the Dow finishing 0.64% higher, the Nasdaq up by precisely the same and the S&P lagging behind on +0.34%.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei is down 1.28% on news that one of the country’s most hardcore (yet strangely endearing) weirdos is maybe – just maybe – beginning to worry what other people might think of him, after he spent 2 million yen to fulfill his dream of transforming into a dog.

 

 

Sorry…

In China, markets are coughing up weakish gains. as the country reels from a UN report that India is set to topple China as the world’s most populous country in a matter of months.

Shanghai and Hong Kong markets are both running about 0.3% higher so far in very early trade.

 

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for January 13 [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
PRM Prominence Energy 0.0015 50% 685000 $2,424,609
T3D 333D Limited 0.0015 50% 270022 $3,189,317
TD1 Tali Digital Limited 0.003 50% 14800 $5,550,311
ROO Roots Sustainable 0.002 33% 2272389 $1,558,829
XST Xstate Resources 0.002 33% 250000 $4,822,772
CLZ Classic Min Ltd 0.01 25% 19473699 $7,009,803
FHS Freehill Mining Ltd. 0.005 25% 10472428 $7,707,396
PFE Pantera Minerals 0.145 21% 624289 $6,180,134
GW1 Greenwing Resources 0.33 20% 292827 $34,716,188
MHC Manhattan Corp Ltd 0.006 20% 2778986 $7,631,393
OAR OAR Resources Ltd 0.006 20% 933334 $12,055,189
PUA Peak Minerals Ltd 0.006 20% 46627 $5,206,883
CHK Cohiba Min Ltd 0.007 17% 2168364 $10,639,465
RAG Ragnar Metals Ltd 0.014 17% 127146 $4,550,219
COO Corum Group Limited 0.037 16% 1020000 $19,116,217
EMC Everest Metals Corp 0.105 15% 600362 $9,685,413
AMN Agrimin Ltd 0.35 15% 110654 $87,947,508
KAL Kalgoorlie Gold Mining 0.087 14% 50420 $5,885,030
GNM Great Northern 0.004 14% 78323 $5,981,678
GRV Greenvale Energy Ltd 0.16 14% 31176 $59,041,109
IBX Imagion Biosys Ltd 0.024 14% 1045682 $23,547,689
AAJ Aruma Resources Ltd 0.065 14% 2975376 $8,946,806
AMX Aerometrex Limited 0.515 13% 93463 $43,039,436
PRS Prospech Limited 0.026 13% 85000 $2,030,868
DOU Douugh Limited 0.0135 13% 3218510 $11,788,030
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In Small Caps this morning, it seems that there has been some good news announced at a webinar (good lord, how I hate that word…) this morning, hosted by Mamba Exploration (ASX:M24) – a recording of which is not yet available, so it’s kinda hard to confirm.

But our suspicions have been aroused that something important was said, because there’s no other news that we can see at the moment, and Mamba’s at the top of the leaderboard, climbing around 22% since the web broadcast kicked off before open.

Aruma Resources (ASX:AAJ) is back on the leaderboard this morning as well, a couple of days after revealing high-grade lithium-rubidium intersections from its final batches of assays from its recently completed drilling program at the Mt Deans Lithium-Rubidium Project near Norseman, in the lithium corridor of south-eastern Western Australia.

AAJ had given up a bunch of the gains it made immediately after that announcement went live on Wednesday, but there’s been significant volume so far today, so investors are clearly very much on the hunt.

And rounding out the Top Three Most Remarkable for today is Greenwing Resources (ASX:GW1),  on the back of news that it has completed the placement of 21,818,182 fully paid ordinary shares to NIO for an aggregate A$12,000,000.

Greenwing has also granted a call option to NIO to acquire, at NIO’s election, between 20% to 40% of the issued capital of Andes Litio SA, which holds options rights over the San Jorge Lithium Project. GW1 is currently trading 16.3% higher.

 

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for January 13 [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap
MEB Medibio Limited 0.0015 -25% 4,271,416 $6,641,188
MGG Mogul Games Grp Ltd 0.0015 -25% 500,000 $6,526,882
VPR Volt Power Group 0.0015 -25% 40,500 $21,432,416
AMT Allegra Orthopaedics 0.078 -22% 484,663 $10,445,920
S3N Sensore Ltd 0.315 -21% 23,744 $10,121,493
MFB My Food Bag Grp Ltd 0.32 -17% 1,727 $93,338,447
ALY Alchemy Resource Ltd 0.02 -17% 26,568,125 $28,273,830
GTG Genetic Technologies 0.0025 -17% 92,000 $27,701,895
TSN The Sust Nutri Grp 0.02 -17% 318,906 $2,894,553
FRM Farm Pride Foods 0.105 -16% 9,592 $6,897,522
TSK Task Group Holdings 0.31 -15% 57,712 $129,512,559
NZS New Zealand Coastal 0.003 -14% 21,916 $3,944,518
SFM Santa Fe Minerals 0.062 -11% 200,004 $5,097,315
KTG K-Tig Limited 0.125 -11% 199,058 $25,625,576
CMX Chemxmaterials 0.17 -11% 17,000 $9,625,614
8IH 8I Holdings Ltd 0.045 -10% 136,595 $17,867,800
SNG Siren Gold 0.18 -10% 10,291 $23,385,095
AL8 Alderan Resource Ltd 0.009 -10% 1,398,350 $5,782,661
TAS Tasman Resources Ltd 0.009 -10% 295,701 $6,711,526
PWN Parkway Corp Ltd 0.01 -9% 700,545 $24,346,085
AU1 The Agency Group Aus 0.03 -9% 185,141 $14,143,027
SES Secos Group Ltd 0.105 -9% 34,815 $61,628,714
EWC Energy World Corpor. 0.042 -9% 452,972 $141,630,377
BNR Bulletin Res Ltd 0.11 -8% 628,872 $35,110,932
GTR Gti Energy Ltd 0.011 -8% 197,129 $18,065,803
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