• ASX closes out the day lower by about 0.74%
  • Online matchmakers Love Group goes on a bodice-busting 39% jag
  • Woman tries to stop eviction with a swarm of bees. No, really…

 

Aussie markets are set to meander to a close around 0.74% down for the day, which is more disappointing than it is aggravating. But don’t get us wrong… it is still aggravating.

Throughout the day, it’s been the Energy Sector carrying the rest of the market once again, with a gut-busting +1.78% offsetting a lot of the poorer performing sectors, such as Financials (-1.19%), Industrials (-1.02%), Real Estate (-1.16%) and Utilities (-1.41%). Materials (+0.21%) and InfoTech (+0.31%) were also positive.

There were some Big Names posting Big Numbers for a Friday, including Whitehaven (ASX:WHC), Yancaol (ASX:YAL) and New Hope (ASX:NHC), which added 6.7%, 8.5% and 8.0% respectively because of coal.

Meanwhile, Perseus Mining (ASX:PRU) got a 7.0% bump after reporting yesterday it had managed to increase gold production and lower production costs, which is obviously going to make investors happy.

Let’s look overseas, because we have the internet and don’t need to leave the house for anything ever again… except maybe to go mountaineering. Or caving.

Unless you already live in a cave, which – now that we think about it – would mean that you don’t have the internet, which means you won’t be reading this, which means we can stop worrying about you altogether.

 

FROM NOT THE ASX

Overall, today’s local dip is broadly in line with the lukewarm welcome we got from Wall Street when we woke up this morning to find the Dow lower by 0.30%, the Nasdaq lower again by 0.61% and the S&P even lower still, by 0.80%.

The overnight news of the day… night? … morning? … whatever… the news is that there was a lift for the FTSE by 0.27% and a charge by the Pound on news that the 44-day reign of the Britain’s ultra-crap PM Liz Truss is coming to a not-unwelcome and highly inglorious end.

Hat tip to The Delightful Emma Davies for bringing us the very best of Britain’s response to that as she filled in on Lunch Wrap duties today – that being that a literal head of lettuce lasted longer on a shelf than Truss did in Number 10 Downing Street.

That great news has been tempered somewhat by news that ousted ex-ex-ex-PM Boris Johnson is considering making a comeback, to which everyone except Boris is silently screaming “Dude! Don’t!”.

Asian markets care not for these follies, however. Despite being a former British colony, Hong Kong shares have fallen 0.40%.

In Japan, news that the local branch of US fast food staple Burger King has added a peanut butter burger to its menu has sent shockwaves through the markets, and caused the Nikkei to slump 0.21%.

And in Shanghai, where Rule Number 1 is that no one has to abide by any of the normal things that cause market fluctuations, everything went up by 0.27%, because it just did, okay? Sheesh.

 

FROM THE HEADLINES

But back to the US quickly, because there was one brief story that caught our eye today – and it’s a tale of what happens when being in financial difficulty turns into the urge to harm someone with a lot of very angry insects.

The ABC reports that a 55-year-old woman arrived at her home in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, to find the local sheriff’s there to serve her with an eviction notice.

Now, being evicted is hugely unpleasant – if you’ve not tried it, we strongly encourage you to keep things that way – but for poor old Rorie Woods, it was too late. She was being ousted from her home, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Except…

It turns out that Ms Woods is something of an apiarist, and – harnessing the power of her mobile, sting-bearing army of winged doom – she let the sheriffs know that she wasn’t having a bar of this “getting chucked out of her home” nonsense.

Woods had a trailer full of wooden beehives attached to her SUV – so she broke them open and sicced them onto the Men And Woman Of Law Enforcement that were present.

It took deputies about 60 seconds to arrest Ms Woods, and local authorities say that all 90,000 of her accomplices will be in police custody within 3-4 weeks, once they have a new shipment of tiny little handcuffs.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

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From the land of Small Caps this arvo comes some reassurance that romance is not dead. Despite it not even being Valentine’s Day or nuthin’, Love Group Global (ASX:LVE) – purveyors of the finest in online matchmaking services that you probably don’t know by name – is bursting out of its bodice with a whopping 38.9% gain for the day.

Meanwhile, Star Combo Pharma (ASX:S66) is up 25% to $0.120 on $476 turnover, and Optiscan Imaging (ASX:OIL) is up 19% to $0.150 on $45,574 turnover.

However, we’ve got bad news for everyone who got “all aboard the magic Toy Train” this week, as Toys’R’Us (ASX:TOY) became Slumps’R’Us, tossing its teddies out of the pram to the tune of a 25.8% tantrum today.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the least-best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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LAST ORDERS

Askari Metals (ASX:AS2) is back in the headlines again, this time with a trading halt ahead of “an announcement by the Company in relation to a material acquisition in the Lithium sector”.

This is on top of Askari’s 14% jump and announcement from yesterday that it had signed a “strategic agreement with Shanghai-listed  Zhejiang Kanglongda Special Protection Technology Co (yup – that’s still a real mouthful) to “develop Australian lithium assets”.

By the looks of things, we’re all gonna have to wait until next week to find out how that particular story ends, but it’s a sudden and spectacular burst of activity from AS2 that will no doubt have investors jumping about like lunatics once they’re done doing that all weekend.

Meanwhile, Diatreme Resources (ASX:DRX) says that it’s further advanced the planned export pathway for its Galalar Silica Sand Project (GSSP), with the Company focused on minimising marine environmental impacts and de-risking approval processes.

DRX says it plans to progress an application for an alternate product delivery corridor, via a northern pipeline route, predominantly through its current exploration tenure area for silica product delivery from the mine site to the designated port area of Cape Flattery.

Annnnd Aspire Mining (ASX:AKM) say it has commenced drilling at its Ovoot Coking Coal Project, conveniently located right next door to China, in Mongolia.

Aspire has recently received the blessings of the locals, and approvals from the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority of Mongolia (MRPAM) and an Environmental Protection Plan approved by soum (council) and aimag (province) authorities administered under the Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism (MNET) for a short exploration and water drilling program.

 

TRADING HALTS

Askari Metals (ASX:AS2) – announcement pending about a material acquisition in the lithium sector. Someone at AS2’s been a busy little bee…

Adveritas (ASX:AV1) – Waiting on news of an announcement regarding a placement. No rush… we’ll wait.

Emperor Energy (ASX:EMP) – EMP is looking to harness the power of those massive Antarctic penguins to raise some capital. Not really… but the thought of penguin-powered market fluctuations is cute. They are having a capital raise, though. That bit’s real.

Monger Gold (ASX:MMG) – Monger is raising capital. Nothing funny about Monger raising capital. Nothing funny at all. Monger – it rhymes with “hunger”, not “longer” or  “wronger”. Just so we’re clear.

NT Minerals (ASX:NTM) – NTM has an announcement in relation to a potential legacy liability of NT Minerals relating to the conclusion of mining activities conducted in New South Wales in 2005.

PolarX (ASX:PXX) – PolarX is having a capital raise, bringing much joy to large white bears, sleigh-tugging reindeer and impoverished indentured unpaid labourers from Santa’s workshop.

And that’s it from us this week… join us next week, as we unravel the very fabric of time and space itself in our relentless pursuit of banking more mun-muns to spend on things we don’t need.

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