I'm not sure what it is... but grandpa lost the keys to it well before I was born. Pic via Getty Images.
ASX Small Caps Lunch Wrap: Whose terrible memory is set to make them millionaires in August?
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Aussie markets opened slightly higher this morning, despite Wall Street snapping its six-day winning streak on Friday night, and wonder of wonders it’s continued to gain throughout the morning, arriving at the lunch break 0.6% higher.
Which is nice, of course – but it’s nowhere near the sorts of gains that one lucky family is about to experience simply because they forgot that a random shed on their Florida property contained a battered collection of the most iconic Ferraris ever built.
Anyone who’s even remotely interested in classic cars will have heard a tale or two about some lucky sod who happened upon what’s known as a “barn find” – a valuable old motor that granddad bought from a bloke up the pub for 20 quid, then stashed it in a shed and promptly forgot about it.
Usually, it’s just the one – a dust-covered, rusting wreck with a family of rodents living a life of luxury in it, usually after nibbling their way through the all-leather interior and then deep into whatever’s left of the foam rubber padding that had – until now – enjoyed a life of keeping the buttocks of millionaires and mistresses alike comfortable.
One classic example is the ‘68 Mustang fastback driven by Steve McQueen in the iconic 1968 film Bullitt – it’s the movie that made both the Mustang and the streets of San Francisco equally famous.
After the film was done, some Hollywood exec snagged it, sold it to a New York cop, who then on-sold it to a fella called Robert Kiernan for US$6000 in 1974.
Kiernan drove it around until 1980, and when it broke down (as Ford Mustangs invariably do, because they’re Fords) he plonked it in a shed and walked away from it.
His son ‘rediscovered’ it quietly rusting itself to pieces some 30 years later, had it restored and put it up for auction in 2020 – where it sold for US$3.7 million, a tidy little 61,566.67% gain from his old man’s initial six grand buy.
So you can probably imagine how the family who owned a shed in Florida were feeling when, in 2004, Hurricane Charley blew through and devastated their property – including an old barn that, apparently, no one had bothered to look inside for quite some time.
When the storm had passed, and the wreckage surveyed, that crusty old barn had collapsed completely, revealing that it was home to a total of 20 historic Ferraris.
They were, obviously, damaged by the storm – and some of them were in pretty poor nick to begin with – but among them are some genuine treasures of prime Italian engineering.
There’s a 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial Spider Series I which would be worth a bit over US$2 million, except that this one looks like it’s ready to be delivered pre-crashed, bearing all the hallmarks of a car that someone has already killed themselves in a horrible accident.
The 1960 Ferrari 250 GT Coupe Series II (US$1.5 million), and the 1968 Ferrari Dino 206 GT (US$900,000) are clearly deep into the “fixer-upper” category.
The 1980 Ferrari 512 BB (US$270,000) looks like it is in drivable condition, the US$350,000 1969 Ferrari 365 GT 2+2 looks like a tree fell on it and the US$1.4 million 1956 Ferrari 250 GT Coupe Speciale has a distinct “well-loved Hot Wheels left out in the sun for 20 years” look about it.
But – astonishingly – some of them look like they’re in showroom condition… including the US$620,000 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Berlinetta, a US$1.6 million 1965 Ferrari 275 GTS and the cherry on top of this Ferrari Sundae – a 1978 Ferrari 512 BB Competizione in full race trim.
The ‘78 512 is hard to put a price on – driven by the team of Jean-Pierre Delaunay, Jacques Guérin, and Gregg Young for Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team in the 1978 24 Hours of Le Mans, it’s verging on the “priceless piece of racing history” category.
The whole lot – all 20 of ‘em – are up for auction in mid-August through Sotheby’s… after which, whichever family of gator-gobbling Florida yokels who somehow managed to forget they had 20 classic Ferraris in their garage, will be top of the invite list at Trump’s next shindig at Mar-a-Lago.
And if that doesn’t have you scurrying out to go rifling through your grandfather’s garage, you’ll just have to settle for trying to beat the market.
Let’s talk about that now.
TO MARKETS
Local markets have lifted 0.6% this morning, despite Wall Street cooling off considerably on Friday and ending the week on a low note.
Leading the charge on the ASX today is Health Care, up 1.85% after having a totally disastrous run last week that saw the entire sector fall a horrible, gruesome 6.1% – so the sector was probably due for a win.
Consumer Staples is also moving upward on +1.5% at lunchtime, with Financials and Utilities not far behind on 0.96% and 1.05% respectively.
As is customary, when the rest of the market’s doing okay, Materials (-0.35%) and Energy (-0.15%) are in the doldrums, at the mercy of shifting fortunes and commodity prices… just like the rest of us.
Up the fancy end of town, Abacus Property Group (ASX:ABP) is trading 6.8% higher after a successful completion of the first stage of a $225 million equity raise for its soon-to-be-listed offshoot Abacus Storage King. ABP also announced it’s going to pay out $0.094 divvies at the end of the month.
And Star Entertainment Group (ASX:SGR), which has been the subject of what some might call a well-deserved kicking at the hands of the market for quite some time, is up 5.9% on no news.
NOT THE ASX
Wall Street snapped its six-day winning streak on Friday, as investors clocked out early to being a long weekend to celebrate the Juneteenth holiday, a commemoration to mark the anniversary of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.
There’s also the US market’s feeling that things had been running a little hot in recent weeks with the whole “if it has AI in the name or on the product, we’re gonna buy it” mentality that has seen America’s tech sector hit boiling point.
Earlybird Eddy reports that while the the S&P 500 was down -0.37%, and tech heavy Nasdaq finished -0.68% lower, analysts still reckon the recent rally seems a bit overextended, but too much money still remains on the sidelines.
“This means if the AI trade remains intact, this winning streak for mega-cap tech stocks can last a while longer,” said Oanda analyst, Edward Moya.
Meanwhile, Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett has channelled his inner Chicken Little, offering this grim, chilling warning: “The current market looks more like 2000 or 2008, with a big rally before a big collapse.”
To stock news, Spotify rose 3% after parting ways with the production company founded by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Archewell Audio.
Disney fell -2% after announcing the departure of its longstanding CFO, Christine McCarthy.
Shares of Virgin Galactic surged 16.5% after announcing that it will launch commercial space operations later this month. It’s worth noting that this is a different operation to Richard Branson’s other space project, Virgin Orbit.
The latter is the one that was trying to use modified jumbo jets to put satellites into space, while the one that’s risen 16.5% overnight is the one that was grounded by authorities several times, and killed one of its test pilots in 2014.
In Japan, the Nikkei is largely flat at +0.05%, Shanghai markets are down 0.46% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has fallen 0.91% in early trade.
ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS
Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for June 14 [intraday]:
Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:
Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap TNC True North Copper 0.24 353% 3,823,331 13,771,597 CLE Cyclone Metals 0.0015 50% 707,318 10,264,505 G50 Gold50 0.19 36% 87,835 7,972,020 BMO Bastion Minerals 0.034 31% 20,132,292 4,144,701 GMN Gold Mountain Ltd 0.0045 29% 25,493,107 6,894,764 MOM Moab Minerals Ltd 0.015 25% 9,513,005 8,183,562 AQC Auspaccoal Ltd 0.1425 24% 415,490 39,940,760 GRE Greentech Metals 0.55 24% 7,821,789 18,649,766 ONE Oneview Healthcare 0.315 24% 3,638,424 136,034,128 FRS Forrestaniaresources 0.098 21% 450,867 4,932,196 DCX Discovex Res Ltd 0.003 20% 798,997 8,256,420 RDN Raiden Resources Ltd 0.006 20% 32,462,123 10,276,345 YPB YPB Group Ltd 0.003 20% 22,642,220 1,548,122 PBH Pointsbet Holdings 1.605 18% 4,822,392 418,860,685 GPR Geopacific Resources 0.021 17% 301,820 14,781,440 AJQ Armour Energy Ltd 0.0035 17% 4,587,500 14,764,026 EPM Eclipse Metals 0.014 17% 1,824,482 24,336,718 FAU First Au Ltd 0.0035 17% 1,143,604 4,355,980 NOR Norwood Systems Ltd. 0.036 16% 406,489 12,536,881 DTR Dateline Resources 0.037 16% 34,358,931 25,441,991 IRX Inhalerx Limited 0.045 15% 40,000 7,400,911 SLZ Sultan Resources Ltd 0.046 15% 3,806,556 5,927,602 CNQ Clean Teq Water 0.27 15% 33,240 13,561,920 PIL Peppermint Inv Ltd 0.008 14% 225,000 14,264,998 SKN Skin Elements Ltd 0.008 14% 345,136 3,699,304
At the top of the table is – notionally – True North Copper (ASX:TNC), which is showing a 370% gain for the day, but it’s not quite what it looks like.
True North Copper was the subject of a reverse takeover by Duke Exploration that started late last year, and the whole thing has taken quite a while to get resolved.
As Stockhead’s very own Josh Chiat explains it, a reverse takeover is “kind of like the alien spawn growing inside of Sigourney Weaver, which then bursts out and becomes a (more friendly) xenomorph.”
That xenomorph has emerged from the chest of the ASX today, with the whole rebranded thing assuming the value of both DEX and TNC, which was well above TNC’s price when the reverse takeover began, and so that’s why it looks like such a huge gain.
Acting in a far more normal fashion is Gold 50 (ASX:G50), which is up 36% on surprisingly slender volume this morning on news that the company has intersected high-grade gold-silver mineralisation within several broad mineralised zones at its Golconda project in Arizona.
The intersects include 35m at 5.2g/t gold and 5.9g/t silver from 176.8m including 9m at 19.5g/t gold and 17.8g/t silver, and 11m at 1.2g/t gold, 399g/t silver, 0.31% copper and 0.55% zinc from 61.0m and immediately below historic underground workings.
Bastion Minerals (ASX:BMO) is up 31% so far today, after it reported staking a strategic 115km2 REE exploration tenure near Gyttorp in Southern Sweden.
BMO says that rock chip samples “greater than 2.86% (28,600 ppm) and 3.64% (36,400 ppm) Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) are recorded in historic sampling with some detection limits exceeding the actual result will be greater than these figures”.
ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS
Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for June 14 [intraday]:
Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:
Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap OPN Oppenneg 0.015 -50% 400,000 $7,275,899 AVW Avira Resources Ltd 0.002 -33% 34,500,385 $6,401,370 CCO The Calmer Co Int 0.002 -33% 30,370 $1,334,333 INP Incentiapay Ltd 0.01 -29% 137,123 $17,710,891 TGH Terragen 0.02 -26% 190,504 $6,024,297 MTL Mantle Minerals Ltd 0.0015 -25% 1,602,799 $12,294,892 AHN Athena Resources 0.007 -22% 5,242,525 $9,634,208 IMI Infinity Mining 0.12 -20% 175,556 $11,471,748 ENT Enterprise Metals 0.004 -20% 1,701,701 $3,525,403 FGL Frugl Group Limited 0.008 -20% 115,000 $9,560,620 CI1 Credit Intelligence 0.11 -19% 329,097 $11,272,387 MGA Metals Grove Mining 0.1 -17% 167,250 $4,350,060 CPT Cipherpoint Limited 0.005 -17% 390,328 $6,955,450 IVX Invion Ltd 0.005 -17% 8,344,421 $38,529,793 MXC MGC Pharmaceuticals 0.005 -17% 460,366 $20,098,158 OM1 Omnia Metals Group 0.23 -16% 759,549 $12,532,003 LKE Lake Resources 0.4 -16% 38,625,863 $675,661,236 AJL AJ Lucas Group 0.012 -14% 1,163,888 $19,260,215 AVM Advance Metals Ltd 0.006 -14% 20,000 $4,119,911 IEC Intra Energy Corp 0.006 -14% 1,411,884 $4,940,471 MRQ MRG Metals Limited 0.003 -14% 1,235,473 $6,950,715 RIM Rimfire Pacific 0.006 -14% 2,075,714 $14,036,713 TOY Toys R Us 0.012 -14% 2,626,892 $12,083,213 BRX Belararox 0.34 -14% 673,804 $16,167,358 TRU Truscreen 0.025 -14% 47,777 $12,082,618
