ASX Small Caps News Wrap: Who else is feelin’ like a rocket man this morning?

Aussie markets opened with a -0.4% whimper this morning, but rallied back to break even when the tea lady wheeled the trolley round, lending everyone the strength to strike back.

Speaking of which, let’s jump into a super-quick news bite, and this morning we’re all travelling to Korea, because there’s been some action there in the past few days that needs to be talked about.

Because A: Regional geopolitical stability is hugely important, and B: It’s hilarious, but in a bad way.

So, we’re all across the idea of Dear Leader of Best Korea’s love of letting off hugely dangerous missiles, like they’re New Years Eve fireworks, as a show of how mighty and powerful he is.

“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay. Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,” he probably thinks, while internally apologising to Shelley because he knows, deep down, what a joke he is.

Anyway… a few days back, North Korea changed up its usual routine of firing rockets directly into the sea, choosing instead to send one soaring over the top of Japan – something it hasn’t done since 2017.

It was, as North Korean missiles go, a pretty good one, travelling 4,500km and getting an alien-invaders-eye view of Tokyo along the way, from a height of more than 1,000km, out beyond the orbit of the International Space Station.

Naturally, Japan, a nation quite famously not hugely enthusiastic about explosive things falling on them, absolutely bricked it. Sirens, bomb shelters, the whole lot… they got quite the scare.

And so, the good ol’ US of A decided that it needed to do something in return. Put that Kim Jong Whatshisname fella in his place, with a show of might so mighty that it might strike fear into the hearts and minds of North Korea’s elite.

Or, at the very least, cause some form of intestinal distress.

So America got South Korea on board, and they teamed up to tell North Korea to “quit it with the rockets and stuff, dude” by firing a few of their own.

That didn’t go too well. Largely because one of South Korea’s rockets, which had been very, very carefully aimed at the enormous body of water that lies off the coast of that country, missed its massive target and hit one of South Korea’s own military installations.

South Korean residents of Gangneung collectively soiled their grundies, thinking that they were being attacked by North Korea. A benefit concert has already been organised to cover the costs of the city’s laundry bill, according to international busybody and lead singer of U2,  Bono.

“We want the people of Korea – all of the Koreas – to get together and dance together for peace in our time… and that’s why we’re calling on the world to join us at the Gangneung Style 2022 Festival,” Bono didn’t really say.

And that’s where that region is at – an escalation of hostilities that looks set to have Best Korea firing more rockets into the sea, with South Korea and the US firing even more rockets into the sea in retaliation.

The outcome is, sadly, inevitable. It’s only going to take a couple of months for all those rockets to pile up and form an artificial island, which China will obviously claim has “always been there” and has “always been Chinese territory”.

But let’s take a look at the markets this morning, to see how many of our own local companies have been firing themselves into the sea.

TO MARKETS

As far as shows of force go, Aussie markets can lay claim to an absolute misfire this morning, as markets followed Wall Street down into a minor case of the Morning Droops.

But it wasn’t long before our little Aussie battler mentality had us back in the black, returning to level pegging by 12pm. However, the victory was short-lived, and at the time of writing, the benchmark is lurking 0.24% on the wrong side of happy.

Across the sectors, the results are as mixed as my feelings about unexpected sexual advances from a long-lost ex-lover.

Energy is today’s standout performer, outshing the rest of the market with a turgid and girthy 1.45% gain, while the rest of the sectors are being flat and boring in the next room and wondering if they’ll get to have a go as well.

Sad Sack of the Morning award goes to Real Estate today, with a dismal -1.28% performance that really is something of a party foul, and worthy of getting sent home to think about what it’s done.

At the top end of town, Pilbara Mining (ASX:PLS) is continuing to barge its way into more billions of value, up another 8.43% to $5.52 as we head into lunch.

Health tech PolyNovo (ASX:PNV) is also enjoying a solid run up the ladder, adding 13% off the back of record-setting Q1 results that include the company’s first-ever $5 million sales month, and phenomenal growth in general.

Not having an excellent day is De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG), down 4.5% this morning on the back of a capital raise announcement yesterday.

And we’ve checked to make sure that it’s not currently raining rockets across Asia, so let’s head overseas to see what else is going on.

NOT THE ASX

Wall Street had a bit of an iffy session last night, with the major indices getting cocky and losing ground after a few days of wallet-bursting gains.

The Dow shed 0.14%, The S&P dropped 0.20% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq crunched out a 0.25% dip before the bell rang and everyone left to go home and watch Sex and the City re-runs in their pyjamas.

Joke’s on them, though – it was the episode where something happened about a pair of shoes and Samantha had sex with a billion dudes and no one batted an eyelid about how many different strains of the Herp she acquired.

In Asia, China’s National Day celebrations stretched out into its fourth day, so no action from Shanghai or Shenzhen. But Hong Kong has opened for business, but probably wishes it hadn’t, dropping 0.3% in early trade.

Japan is bucking the international trend, as investors race to pocket as many shares as they can before North Korea (or South Korea, for that matter) sends another errant rocket over their country and everyone has WWII flashbacks again.

The Nikkei has risen 0.66%, on news that the vending machines near the Tokyo exchange that sell tiny wind-up robot sex toys with long sticky tentacles have finally been re-stocked.

On the commodities desk, and it’s pleasant news for everyone except for anyone who’s sitting on an enormous pile of wheat.

Oil is up 0.26%, gas has floated up 0.42%, but wheat is down 0.17%, possibly because the prophesied locust plague that marks the beginning of The End of Days has been cancelled due to lack of interest, and violent protests from the pro-locust movement.

The market for shiny stuff is performing well, though, with gold up 0.5%, silver up 1.05% and copper adding 1.99% and nearing the sort of prices that will have tweakers breaking into your house to pull the wiring out of the walls.

In the deep, dark Crypto Forest, where Grandma’s house is inexplicably located, things are trending green – Bitcoin is up 0.89% and ETH has been boosted by 1.83% over the past 24 hours.

As usual, you can catch all the crypto action over at Rob “My, what massive losses you have, Grandma!” Badman’s epically epic Mooners and Shakers. Read it, or be square, man.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for October 6 [intraday]:

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

In Small Caps, the big news – and the morning’s big winner – is Beyond International (ASX:BYI), which has torn the covers off an acquisition by Banijay, as part of the latter’s growth strategy in the ever-increasing market for televisual entertainment.

Under the scheme, Beyond Shareholders will pocket $0.7744 per share in cash, a massive 57% premium to the Beyond one-month volume weighted average price up to and including 30 September 2022.

That has, naturally, sent investors into an ape-in frenzy, racing to grab as much as they can while there’s still premium lying on the table – but if you’re not already in, it’s probs too late to bother… BYI has rocketed up 50% since open this morning and has pretty much reached the magic $0.77 price already.

Also rising quickly this morning was copper miner Cobre (ASX:CBE), up 33% on no news and Paradigm Biopharmaceutical (ASX:PAR) added 22% on the back of recent news of success with a… ummm… really complicated thing that it did that we just don’t have time to get into right now.

But it was a Good Thing. So there’s that.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for October 6 [intraday]:

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