• The ASX climbed 0.4% today after investors threatened it with a stick
  • Mt Monger (ASX:MTM) wins the day by securing funding for it’s Canadian REE play
  • New consumer survey suggests 42% of shoppers might be dumber than previously feared

 

Aussie markets rallied today, hitting a relatively healthy +0.5% at lunchtime, before easing to +0.4% as the session wound to a close.

Energy remained on the boil for most of the day to add 1.6%, with Real Estate putting on 1.4% and InfoTech breaking the 1.0% mark, but not by much.

Utilities continued to drag through the afternoon, falling 0.88% while Consumer Discretionary dipped 0.36%, Health Care fell 0.22% and Financials dropped 0.19%.

At the pointy end of the plane, mid cap resources stocks De Grey (ASX:DEG) and Syrah (ASX:SYR) were both enjoying the fruits of the morning’s Materials sector bounce, adding to their gains this afternoon to reach +6.9% and +6.2% respectively, despite the sector’s performance easing the longer the session continued.

Losing a lot of ground this morning is Harvey Norman (ASX:HVN), dumping more than 9.0% after posting its third consecutive EBITDA fall to $694 million, and NPAT down to $365.9 million.

Harvey Norman’s very pretty consumer-friendly Half-Yearly report presentation did employ what looks suspiciously like a bit of “creative design work” to visually mitigate the decline in profits.

But eagle-eyed investor types all appear to have noticed that the retailer’s claim that its most recent NPAT is a 71.3% increase is true, when comparing it to the result from 2020.

In Asian markets, things are looking positively verdant to varying degrees – Japan’s Nikkei is up 0.18%, the Hang Seng is up 0.41% and Shanghai’s popped out a bubble of gains, adding 0.07% with few hours of its day left to run.

 

FROM THE HEADLINES

In personal finance news, the Australian federal government has successfully kicked another superannuation can down the road, introducing legislation to cut existing tax concessions on Super accounts over $3 million – but the changes are not due to come into force until after the next election.

Under the new rules, from 2025-26, the concessional tax rate applied to future earnings for super balances above $3 million will from the existing 15% up to 30%, a change that Treasurer Jim Chalmers says is “modest”, and will that will only affect 0.5% of Aussies with superannuation accounts with balances “beyond what is necessary to fund a comfortable retirement”.

Explaining the delayed implementation of the adjustment (if it does get passed), Chalmers said that the policy would “go to the people and the Prime Minister and I think that is very important”.

Meanwhile, data from the ABS out today tells us that Australians are getting back into the swing of spending, if the 1.9% jump in retail turnover in January is to be believed.

“Looking through this volatility shows that turnover is at a similar level to September 2022, and on average, growth has been flat over the past few months,” ABS head of retail statistics Ben Dorber said.

“November, December and January are the most seasonal months of the year, with retail activity heavily affected by the Christmas period and January holidays.

“This has been heightened by an increase in the popularity of Black Friday sales and growing cost of living pressures combining to drive a change in usual consumer spending patterns.”

That’s likely to be seen as cold comfort for supermarkets, though, after Australia’s largest cold chain refrigeration logistics company limps into administration, threatening 1,500 jobs and ice-cream supplies around the nation.

Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics has entered voluntary administration with KordaMentha appointed receivers – and partner Scott Langdon (who is unrelated to Scott who owns the cold trucks) said workers would stay in their jobs through the sale process.

“The 1,500 workers are being paid tomorrow – on time – and we are now immediately commencing a sale process to find a new owner for the business,” Langdon says.

And lastly, while we’re still on the topic of Australians who like to buy things, new e-commerce research from Power Retail has shown that a hugely disappointing number of Australians are prepared to admit that they have made a purchasing decision in the past month on the recommendation of an influencer.

The research shows that roughly 42% of online shoppers follow one or more shopping influencers, with 10% following 11 or more influencers – begging the question “what do they do if their multiple influencers don’t agree with each other?”

One can only hope that soon – very soon – the Australian government will grant permission for the construction of vast stadiums across the country, where influencers will be herded en masse into the centre and made to fight to the death for our entertainment, and to free up high-value Gold Coast real estate as well.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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As the trading winds to a close, it’s Mt Monger Resources (ASX:MTM) still leading the Small Caps pack after posting a 38.1% gain on news that it’s received firm commitments for a two-tranche placement of new shares at $0.10 a pop to raise up to $3.0 million before costs.

The funds will be will primarily be applied towards the company’s maiden diamond drill program at its recently acquired Pomme rare earth element (REE) and niobium (Nb) project, located in Québec, Canada – where all the cool kids are busy scratching about in the dirt before winter comes and turns everyone there into meat popsicles for a few months.

Belting up the charts since lunchtime was Aldoro Resources (ASX:ARN), which has climbed 37.5% after a sudden surge in volume which has no discernible cause – there’s been nothing meaningful announced to the market since late January.

Still tracking well is this morning’s surprise mover BikeExchange (ASX:BEX), up 33.3% with nearly double its four-week average volume after the Consumer Cyclical (ha!) company’s half-year results show that it has managed to take a 77% pcp revenue increase and deliver an 81% larger loss.

Still, for whatever reason, it’s a company that quite a few people have very publicly written off over the past 12 months – yet, here we are, and BEX is up 9.9% over the past five days… still down 80.0% for the year, but.

And lastly, Aston Minerals (ASX:ASO) has surged again today as well, up 21.2% as the market continues to wrap its head around its Boomerang project’s 1.044 Billion Tonne maiden nickel-cobalt mineral resource estimate, announced this time last week.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the least best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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LAST ORDERS

Some bright news that we missed late yesterday from EZZ Life Science (ASX:EZZ), after the company dropped a barnstormer earnings report showing it has posted a jaw-dropping 1,202% increase in profit for the half year ending 31 December, 2022.

EZZ boosted revenue from $6.2 million to $15.1 million on pcp, a 143.4% rise, to turn a $1.3 million profit that towers over the $99,000 it produced for the same period last year.

The company has announced a fully-franked dividend of $0.45, and it’s trading 9.6% higher over the past 5 days, and +15.9% for the month off the back of the results.

Meanwhile, Security Matters (ASX:SMX) has been given the green light by the Federal Court of Australia for its merger with Lionheart III.

SMX says it will be lodging a copy of the order with with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in the very near future, and it expects that as the scheme will be effective when that occurs, quotation of SMX shares on the ASX will be suspended from the close of trading tomorrow, 1 March 2023.

And lastly for today, Quattro RE, in its capacity as responsible entity for Auckland Real Estate Trust (ASX:AKL) has advised that shareholders have overwhelmingly voted for AKL to de-list from the main boards of the ASX and NZX.

The AKL board has also said that, following support of the resolution to de-list, the withdrawal offer and small holdings redemption facility as set out in the Notice of Meeting dated Friday, 3 February 2023, are now open.

 

TRADING HALTS

Security Matters (ASX:SMX) – Halted ahead of Australian Federal Court orders in relation to the merger with Lionheart III Corp.

Live Verdure (ASX:LV1) – Capital raising.

Rox Resources (ASX:RXL) – Drilling results from the Youanmi gold project.

Venus Metals (ASX:VMC) – Also drilling results from the Youanmi gold project.

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