CLOSING BELL: It’s a -0.4% Monday, Bloody Monday despite knockout REE results for Metal Hawk

The ASX banks another dim result, down 0.4% for the day
Materials recovered from an early slump, but InfoTech powered on to help minimise losses
Metal Hawk’s TREO find at Fraser South was the day’s true highlight; stock up 140% as a result

It’s been a really up and down day for the ASX, which is lurching between bad and not-quite-so bad like a drunk on his way to the last pub with the lights still on.

From the initial -0.5% drag at open, the needle’s jumped hither and thither no fewer than 17 times, ending the day on a thither stroke, leaving the market down 0.4%.

But first, a quick update (and a small confession…) due to a scheduling conflict today, I pre-wrote a large part of Lunch Wrap today – and then missed a rather crucial piece of information relating to the headline news story of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk reportedly due to do battle in a UFC cage in Las Vegas.

It turns out that the fight – which would have been as lopsided as Elon’s grotesque dad-bod – will probably not be going ahead, because Elon’s mum won’t let him.

No joking. Fight with words only. In armchairs. 4 feet apart. The funniest person wins.🤗😂 https://t.co/MpgFZmspP2

— Maye Musk (@mayemusk) June 22, 2023

How she made the logical jump from “No joking” to “funniest person wins” in just 40 characters on Twitter is beyond me, but it certainly gives the Tesla CEO an out, once he realises that his mouth is writing cheques that probably should remain uncashed, if only for everyone’s sanity.

TO MARKETS

Anyway – onto the important stuff of the day, which is just how and why the ASX has had another dose of the downers.

InfoTech is back at the top of the leaderboard, well above the rest of the market on 0.7% with a reasonably solid across-the-board rally that I can’t really pin on any particular stock.

At the expensive end of the segment, results were fairly well mixed – Altium (ASX:ALU) and Data#3 (ASX:DTL) posted sub-1.0% gains, but the usual faces that crop up here like Life360 (ASX:360) and the always-amusing Dicker Data (ASX:DDR) were both well down against the overall InfoTech trend.

Discretionary and Real Estate were the only other two sectors in the green, however – and so it was that Financials, Utilities, Staples and Health Care combined to weigh the broader market down throughout the day.

The Materials sector, which led off the bloodletting early in the day, has recovered somewhat throughout the session – and, as it quite often the case, it’s among the Materials Small Cappers that the bulk of the day’s top performers are found.

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Code	Company	Price	%	Volume	Market Cap
MHK	Metalhawk.	0.195	124%	7,807,148	$5,823,379
CLE	Cyclone Metals	0.0015	50%	306,126	$10,264,505
MEB	Medibio Limited	0.0015	50%	254,272	$4,547,927
TD1	Tali Digital Limited	0.0015	50%	3,677,858	$3,295,156
VPR	Volt Power Group	0.0015	50%	250,500	$10,716,208
RAG	Ragnar Metals Ltd	0.027	35%	12,663,233	$7,583,698
MTB	Mount Burgess Mining	0.002	33%	4,240,025	$1,324,757
MTH	Mithril Resources	0.002	33%	16,503,921	$5,053,207
BOD	BOD Science Ltd	0.065	33%	963,212	$7,502,953
H2G	Greenhy2 Limited	0.018	29%	30,362	$5,862,582
CMD	Cassius Mining Ltd	0.032	28%	4,317,423	$12,418,205
CAV	Carnavale Resources	0.0025	25%	10,924,907	$5,467,103
GFN	Gefen Int	0.01	25%	296,889	$544,801
VRC	Volt Resources Ltd	0.01	25%	18,058,275	$31,515,391
LYN	Lycaonresources	0.235	24%	389,815	$6,254,563
AW1	Americanwestmetals	0.145	21%	21,196,810	$31,939,394
ECS	ECS Botanics Holding	0.024	20%	6,277,936	$22,134,613
GMN	Gold Mountain Ltd	0.006	20%	2,461,034	$9,849,663
PVW	PVW Res Ltd	0.067	20%	676,125	$5,513,962
SEN	Senetas Corporation	0.025	19%	5,738,889	$25,496,953
AJX	Alexium Int Group	0.013	18%	1,095,005	$7,165,287
SLA	Silk Laser Australia	3.33	18%	2,516,235	$149,801,719
OLI	Oliver'S Real Food	0.02	18%	46,227	$7,492,443
HMG	Hamelingoldlimited	0.105	17%	855,494	$13,275,000
REY	REY Resources Ltd	0.175	17%	38,678	$31,777,131

There is zero doubt that the day belonged to Metal Hawk (ASX:MHK), which climbed more than 140% on news that the company has hit wide zones of Rare Earth Element (REE) saprolite enrichment identified from maiden aircore drilling program at Fraser South.

The results are pretty juicy, including:

26m @ 1526ppm TREO from 16m to EOH, incl. 8m @ 3101ppm TREO from 32m
13m @ 1202ppm TREO from 36m, incl. 5m @ 2298ppm TREO from 44m
8m @ 1087ppm TREO from 36m and 10m @ 1781ppm TREO from 52m
19m @ 816ppm TREO from 8m, incl. 3m @ 2840ppm TREO from 24m to EOH

On top of that, the company reports that the mineralised intervals have an average of 20.5% Magnetic Rare Earth Oxides (MREO), and that the high grades of up to 4120ppm Total Rare Earth Element Oxides (TREO) 1 from 4m composite sampling confirms regional prospectivity.

Ragnar Metals (ASX:RAG) has had a very busy day on the announcements board, which saw it gain 35% throughout the session.

There was a lot to unpack – no less than 5 market-moving announcements in the space of 90 seconds, plus a couple of pages of pointless ASX busywork – but the gist of it is (with thanks to Reubs) this:

Sweden-focused RAG had been quiet in 2023, until today, when it snapped up four lithium and REE projects and unloaded the ‘Tullsta’ nickel assets to mining major BHP for $9.8m.

The lightly explored ‘Halleberget’ and ‘Bergom’ hard rock lithium projects include low grade, but promising, surface sampling results like up to 0.473% Li2O, 196 ppm Ta and 4.48% Sn.

The ‘Olserum’ and ‘Gruvhagen’ REE projects come with historical exploration results of up to 3.7% TREO, including very high heavy REE and Nd/Pr ratios.

Meanwhile, the company will sell its more advanced Tullsta project, also in Sweden, to mining behemoth BHP for a tidy $9.8m. RAG will retain a 1% smelter royalty, which BHP can buy for another $10m.

And in third (or second – it’s neck and neck at the end of the day) place is limestone explorer Cassius Mining (ASX:CMD), which has reported that 80% of drill assays from the ‘Soalara’ limestone project in Madagascar have returned an average grade of 97.44% calcium carbonate, classifying it as “high purity” limestone.

High (97-98.5%) to very high purity (+98.5%) limestone sequences remain open at 100m depth in all 9 holes, the company says, which has investors excited enough to drive up its price a tidy 35% for the day.

“With all nine vertical core holes to date confirming flat-bedded geology, encountering multiple thick sequences of Limestone at very shallow depths in every single hole in the two highest categories of purity and remaining open at depth in every hole, we are extremely optimistic on the future success of the project,” Cassius CEO James Arkoudis says.

“With the initial MRE scheduled for July, we are confident the outcome will raise many options for our forward work program, including consideration of development plans with or without potential JV partners.”

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the least best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Code	Company	Price	%	Volume	Market Cap
BOAR	Boadicea Resources	0.001	-67%	1,958,144	$143,961
NYR	Nyrada Inc.	0.037	-53%	3,118,846	$12,324,687
IS3	I Synergy Group Ltd	0.008	-43%	1,003,843	$4,047,125
WFL	Wellfully Limited	0.003	-40%	1,119,530	$2,464,721
BP8	Bph Global Ltd	0.002	-33%	54,878	$3,854,189
EMU	EMU NL	0.002	-33%	1,033,970	$4,350,064
FAU	First Au Ltd	0.002	-33%	325,000	$4,355,980
MRQ	Mrg Metals Limited	0.002	-33%	9,485,555	$5,957,756
OAU	Ora Gold Limited	0.002	-33%	2,531,258	$11,810,775
PUA	Peak Minerals Ltd	0.002	-33%	75,855	$3,124,130
WEL	Winchester Energy	0.002	-33%	413,326	$3,061,266
NES	Nelson Resources.	0.004	-27%	794,000	$3,237,269
PHL	Propell Holdings Ltd	0.027	-27%	40,518	$4,453,154
AXP	AXP Energy Ltd	0.0015	-25%	438,867	$11,649,361
ICN	Icon Energy Limited	0.003	-25%	19,414	$3,072,055
AD1	AD1 Holdings Limited	0.004	-20%	1,320,710	$4,112,845
ERL	Empire Resources	0.004	-20%	1,700,000	$5,564,675
GCR	Golden Cross	0.002	-20%	360,000	$2,743,140
NGY	Nuenergy Gas Ltd	0.029	-19%	50,000	$53,314,398
MRI	Myrewardsinternation	0.017	-19%	89,080	$6,470,062
BFC	Beston Global Ltd	0.009	-18%	916,392	$21,967,516
OPN	Oppenneg	0.009	-18%	1,323,021	$2,667,830
EPM	Eclipse Metals	0.014	-18%	4,339,772	$34,477,016
CPT	Cipherpoint Limited	0.005	-17%	1,669,316	$6,955,450
GTG	Genetic Technologies	0.0025	-17%	132,197	$34,624,974

LAST ORDERS

Ventia Services (ASX:VNT) has scored a five-year contract with the Department of Defence, expected to deliver revenue of approximately $393 million to Ventia over the next five years, with a possible contract extension of a further 5 years.

The contract will see Ventia working with Joint Logistics Command to play an important role in supporting Australian Defence Force units preparing for and returning from operations and exercises, helping to ensure the availability and safe working order of unit-allocated and pooled Defence materiel.

Ventia Group Executive – Defence and Social Infrastructure, Derek Osborn said this award is “a testament to the strong partnership and shared forward thinking between Ventia and the Commonwealth”.

“Our track record of delivering diverse maintenance services, our expertise in workforce management and demonstrated strong performance as a long-term Commonwealth partner were key elements in the award of this contract,” Osborn says. “We’re proud of the collaborative partnership we have with Defence and are delighted to continue redefining service excellence on this important contract.”

Elsewhere, Eclipse Metals (ASX:EPM) dropped an announcement this morning that appears to have garnered some attention, as the company has since retracted it on the basis that the lab analysis wasn’t quite up to scratch.

Today’s release was “in relation to laboratory analysis currently underway of trench samples collected at Grønnedal in October 2022”.

“The Company advises it retracts the announcement in its entirety as laboratory results remain incomplete as the Company awaits re-analysis by the lab using methods appropriate for measuring higher limits of neodymium and associated interpretation,” the retraction reads.

“Accordingly, investors should not rely on the previous announcement.”