• ASX 200 bounces back to grind out a 0.47% win for the day
  • HitIQ’s new deals look set to cement its place in professional sports
  • Star gets some heartburn-inducing mail from regulators in Queensland

If you’re like me and can’t read the word “Friday” without this grotesque abomination of a tune playing on loop in your head for the next 12 hours, then I hate to tell you this: It’s Friday.

 

It’s Friday, Friday // Gotta get down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend // Friday, Friday

Gettin’ down on Friday // Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah) // Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Fun, fun, fun, fun // Lookin’ forward to the weekend

 

It’s clearly a lyrical horror show, that much is certain – and while it may well contain plenty of questionable rhyme, there’s not a shred of reason in there at all. 1.5 stars.

A quick look at the headlines you missed today because you’re super busy and massively important and honestly, who really has time for this?

 

FROM THE HEADLINES

The 2022 World Cheese Awards have been run and won in Wales this week, because of course there’s a World Cheese Award. Why wouldn’t there be? Cheese is amazing.

Anyway… 4,434 cheeses from 42 countries were brought together for a mass cheese tasting in a large hall that would have smelt like Satan’s sweat socks, to decide on a Top 98 “super gold” champions from which a final 16 were picked.

The winner: Le Gruyère AOP surchoix, from Swiss cheese maker Vorderfultigen and affineur Gourmino, which boasted “notes of herbs, fruits and leather” – the first two being quite palatable things, and the last bearing all the hallmarks that at least half the judges are into some super-kinky after-hours stuff.

There were two Aussies in the “Super Gold” final 98 – the Kris Lloyd Artisan Anthill from Woodside Cheese Wrights in South Australia, and the Riverine Blue from Victoria’s Berrys Creek Gourmet Cheese.

The judges made sure to thank the producers of all 4,434 cheeses entered this year, before going home to endure several months of crippling gut cramps, violent diarrhoea and weird dreams that are haunted by the crackling of their arteries hardening in their sleep.

And from Russia comes news that Vladimir Putin is being all coy about whether he’s going to run in the 2024 Presidential election, after 21 years at the helm of his country. The whole Ukraine thing is clearly not going as planned, which has led to speculation among even the stuanchest of Putin allies that the Russian leader might call it a day.

Among those voices was Russian chess grandmaster turned politician Anatoly Karpov, who spoke out against the war in Ukraine late last week, despite being one of Putin’s closest and most trusted comrades in Russian politics.

Karpov is currently in a Moscow hospital with a broken leg and a traumatic brain injury, after falling victim to the rapidly spreading “mysterious fall” epidemic that has swept through the ranks of Russian politicians and oligarchs in the past year or so.

Or as his loyal daughter Sofia put it, “injured as a result of an everyday injury”; i.e. the type of everyday injury that occurs every day someone close to Putin speaks out against his policies, and gets an injury.

 

QUICK MARKET WRAP

My word, we’re all over the place today. But here’s some far more relevant and important news.

Aussie markets had been looking a bit Rebecca Black this morning, not sure whether it’s sittin’ in the front seat or kickin’ in the back seat. WHICH SEAT SHALL I CHOOOS– stop that. Stop it now.

It actually kicked off with a 0.4% thanks to Wall Street spending the night thumping its head against a poster of Jerome Powell, screaming “Why, Jerome? Whhhyyyyyyyy?”

But things improved somewhat, and with the bell still ringing in our ears, we’re happy to tell you that the benchmark finished the week with a baby Friday flourish, up 0.54% – a remarkable turnaround, I think we can all agree.

We have Energy’s whip-cracking 3.5% gain for the day to thank for it (and rising raw materials prices to thank for that), but it wasn’t a solo effort – Materials gained 1.98% and Utilities put in a very useful 1.56% as well.

Dying of a substantial dose of Creeping Value Rot was Healthcare, down 0.92% with Telcos shedding 0.52% over the course of the day.

 

NOT THE ASX

As noted, Wall Street was a bit crook overnight, with the Dow once again proving to be the more resilient, falling 0.46% while the S&P dropped 1.06% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gave investors a hammering, losing 1.73%.

Tech shares are all over the place in the US with some astonishing numbers this week – but all eyes have been on Twitter and Elon Musk and the ongoing debate as to how hard he is going to roger his $44 billion white elephant over the next few weeks.

Musk has clearly opted for the “more stick, less carrot” approach to getting his new toy into shape, dragging a crew of coders from Tesla over to “fix it” – and in the meantime fighting with celebrities about charging them money to stay verified and (even worse), telling workers he expects them to be putting in 80+ hour weeks, and that at the end of the current sprint at Twitter, about 75% are getting the arse.

Top bloke, that Musk fella. #EyerollEmoji #GoColoniseMarsAlready #PigsInSpace.

In Asia, the markets moved in mysterious Eastern ways, with Hong Kong smashing an all-star “Recession? We don’t know the meaning of the word!” +5.70% ride to the top of Mount Moneyfight.

Shanghai seems to have caught a bit of a ‘contact high’ from Hong Kong, where infectious things tend to spread pretty quickly, putting on its own +2.09% jump.

Meanwhile, in Japan, not even news that film studio Toho is bringing the world’s favourite city-destroying lizard back to the big screen was enough to get investors excited, so the Nikkei sunk 1.87%.

 

BACK IN THE MAGICAL LAND OF OZ

Here at home, all eyes were on HitIQ (ASX:HIQ), which is riding a wave of well-earned investor excitement – and up a massive 75% today alone – on news that it’s signed two huge multi-year contracts that will see its tech used in evaluating head injuries and concussions among elite athletes, including England’s Premier League.

HIQ has been a bit of a sleeper with its tech obviously finally seeing the light of acceptance as a legit tool in the fight against traumatic brain injuries in the highest level of sports – and if the Premier League is on board, you can bet your bottom dollar that other contracts are going to start rolling in the door over the coming weeks and months.

HIQ’s boost was enough to knock Pantera Minerals (ASX:PFE) off the top spot on the podium, with this morning’s darling finishing the day with a credible second place, up 54.2% on news that the drills have started to spin at at its Weelarrana Manganese Project, to test high grade outcropping manganese mineralisation at Mn Area 1.

Pantera says the drilling should take about a week to complete, with the 1,200m RC drilling program consisting of 30 planned holes, testing an 800m long and up to 5m thick outcropping high grade manganese occurrence with surface grades of between 12%  to a proper juicy 44% manganese.

And in third was a real Friday Arvo Late Bolter Special, after Bindi Metals (ASX:BIM) shot up some 33.3% on no news today – just an okay-looking rehash of okay-looking exploration numbers in the quarterly it released on Monday.

‘Tis a bit of a mystery, but it seems to happen from time to time – and, of course, if we ever find out why (or remember we’re meant to be keeping an eye on it), we’ll be sure to let you know.

 

OTHER STUFF YOU MISSED

And we’re off and racing in Queensland, after regulators there sent Star Entertainment Group (ASX:SGR) a bunch of Show Cause Notices in relation to its operations in that state.

Star, purveyors of some of the very finest poker machine experiences in Australia, is mired walnuts-deep in woe at the moment, with a massive re-tooling underway to try to get the business up to code so that it can get its casino licences back in order.

This round of notices stem from an independent external review into the operations of The Star’s casinos in Queensland, undertaken by The Honourable Robert Gotterson AO, and come on the heels of the findings of the report of Mr Adam Bell SC in New South Wales and the separate investigation undertaken by OLGR, and the response from the Attorney-General.

Star is staring at an enormous battle to bring its house into order – and the battle for the hearts and minds of Aussie gamblers is set to be a long and brutal endeavour as well while the company tries to rehabilitate its public image once the fallout has settled.

Star is trading flat today, but down from its recent $3.01 high on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, Sierra Nevada Gold (ASX:SNX) has kicked off 3,600m of reverse circulation drilling at New Pass in Nevada, USA as part of a 5,000m RC program across three high-impact targets named Colorback, which was completed last month, New Pass and Warrior.

SNX chief exec Peter Moore is confident that there’s more gold to be found at the historic site, which has produced an average grade of 17g/t gold from two parallel north-south striking veins back in the olden days.

And Desert Metals (ASX:DM1) has now completed an additional four diamond holes in its drilling program at Dingo Pass, following neighbouring Krakatoa Resources (ASX:KTA) upgraded its own REE find at its Tower project in WA.

Desert Metals says its new drilling confirms that there is a good likelihood that a “large part” of Krakatoa’s newly-extended clay hosted REE discovery “may lie on Desert Metals’ licence”, which could make for some interesting times for both companies as they race to get full lab results back to confirm what’s happening down below.

Let’s see who won today:

 

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin
Annnnnd, let’s see who didn’t win today:

 

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:

Security Description Last % Volume MktCap
HGH Heartland Group 1.59 -4% 688 $1,163,780,290.20
HUB HUB24 Ltd 24.8 -4% 201,919 $2,059,096,338.16
BKL Blackmores Limited 65.2 -3% 17,543 $1,312,968,707.57
PME Pro Medicus Limited 53.99 -3% 68,366 $5,807,477,589.33
TAH TABCORP Holdings Ltd 0.9325 -3% 7,199,924 $2,188,297,874.88
RMD ResMed Inc. 33.33 -3% 961,390 $14,196,984,282.50
BXB Brambles Limited 11.38 -3% 1,647,520 $16,232,609,045.59
LFG Liberty Fin Group 3.41 -3% 46,966 $1,062,600,000.00
JLG Johns Lyng Group 6.51 -3% 228,511 $1,744,560,316.32
ORA Orora Limited 2.935 -2% 851,527 $2,544,508,887.90
Security Description Last % Volume MktCap
HGH Heartland Group 1.59 -4% 688 $1,163,780,290.20
HUB HUB24 Ltd 24.8 -4% 201,919 $2,059,096,338.16
BKL Blackmores Limited 65.2 -3% 17,543 $1,312,968,707.57
Wordpress Table Plugin
Annnnnnnnd, let’s see who stopped trading today, and why:

 

TRADING HALTS

Arcadia Minerals (ASX:AM7) – Super-exciting news from Arcadia after the team found a significant geophysical anomaly at its Bitterwasser lithium project. More news is on the way but a chunky lithium find always jazzes the market’s marbles.

Arafura Rare Earths (ASX:ARU) – Arafura’s on hold for the moment, pending the release of info about a binding offtake agreement. Happy Days.

Jameson Resources (ASX:JAL) – Jameson’s throwing a capital raise, and everyone’s invited! Woo!

Aumake (ASX:AUK) – Well… that’s a bit awkward – Aumake is having a capital raise too – but we’re sure there’s enough time to go to both.

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