Meanwhile, in the Qantas boardroom... Pic via Getty Images.
CLOSING BELL: Qantas boss finally finds the backbone his airline lost on the way to Bali
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- Qantas boss Alan Joyce says “sorry we suck” to an angry Australia
- Mortgage holders are bricking it as fixed interest rate periods end
- Spacetalk backs up yesterday’s gains with another massive day at the market.
It’s the end of the day at the end of the week, which means most of you have pretty much already checked out completely, and contemplating what you’re going to do with yourself until the madness begins again on Monday morning.
But for those of you who’re still interested, a very quick look at the day’s results shows the ASX benchmark enjoyed a post-lunch value surge this arvo, stacking another 0.3% on top of the morning’s reasonably good gains to finish the week on a high note.
It would have been better, except the Materials sector called in sick this morning, and even when it did decide to show up for work, it put in a miserable -1.46% performance, leaving many investors shaking their fists and saying stuff like “grrrrr” and “I should really diversify my portfolio a lot more”.
The best performing sectors were Health Care (+2.47%) and Real Estate (2.32%), so they both get a Gold Star on the “You Done Good, Champ” poster, and are allowed to leave 5 minutes early provided someone responsible is waiting at the gate to pick them up.
In amongst the Large Cap winners were Pinnaale Investment (ASX:PNI), up 10.7% and Brainchip (ASX:BRN), which added 6.3% – but the winner of today’s “So Close You Could Almost Touch It” trophy is Weebit Nano, which shot up 14.2% to come within a whisker of being able to boast that it’s a Billion Dollar Company.
The Weebit family’s just going to have to wait until Monday to rip the corks from the champagne bottles, I’m afraid.
FROM THE HEADLINES
Qantas (ASX:QAN) boss Alan Joyce has penned an open letter to All Australians, offering an apology (of sorts) over how demonstrably awful Australia’s Flying Kangaroo has become in recent times.
The choicest snippets of that letter include stuff like “Six months ago … almost half our flights were late, our rate of misplaced bags had more than doubled and we were cancelling up to 7% of our schedule.”
Shocking. Truly, truly shocking.
But Joyce did do his best to say that the company didn’t mean to suck… it kinda just happened.
“Knowing that we were routinely letting customers down was hugely disappointing for everyone at Qantas,” Joyce wrote, adding that “It’s the exact opposite of our culture”.
Workplace culture is great and all, but it’s hard to weigh up the performance of Qantas in recent times and not arrive at the conclusion that the Internal Communications corkboards around the office are plastered with motivational posters screaming: “Don’t Forget to be a Massive Disappointment today!”
Addressing recent flak Qantas received over having to turn a flight back because one of the engines stopped working, Joyce fell back on “we’re not as bad as everyone else” as the response, which was received about as well as you’d expect from a pitchfork-wielding Australia.
Recent customers of Qantas have widely mocked the airline boss’ grovelling apology – there’s far, far too much of it swirling around on the internet to summarise here, but this video pretty much sums it up the nation’s mood on the topic.
In other news, Australia is in the midst of a refinancing boom as many Aussie borrowers find themselves at the tail end of the attractive fixed interest rate periods they locked in on products such as mortgages, back in the days when rates were ludicrously low and you could land yourself a home loan through the simple expediency of not being dead when you applied.
According to the ABC, around $19 billion in home loans were moved to new lenders in December, an 18% jump on the figures for the same period in 2021, but slightly lower (-1.5%) down on the figure for November.
The movement is largely due to mortgage holders realising that The Good Times are Definitely Over and scrambling to figure out how to manage a few more hundreds of dollars suddenly appearing on the bad side of the monthly household budget.
Meanwhile, the uptake on for first home buyer mortgages in Australia has fallen significantly – and among those who are either getting in for the first time or refinancing existing loans, a scant 4.9% of them are opting to lock in a fixed rate when they do so, a very strong indication that current ‘ordinary Joe’ sentiment is getting behind interest rates falling again in the short term.
The Reserve Bank of Australia is scheduled to meet this coming Tuesday, and a 25 basis point hike is the unbackable favourite for what’s set to emerge from that meeting, which has pretty much been priced in already so there shouldn’t be too many surprises when it drops.
And over in the US, defence officials are reportedly split on how to deal with a suspected Chinese “Spy Balloon”, which has been detected hovering over the United States.
The balloon, the source of which is currently unknown, was spotted over Billings, Montana, on Wednesday, after reportedly flying over the Aleutian Islands, through Canada, and into Montana, according to CBS news.
US President Joe Biden has reportedly been briefed on the balloon, and the threats it might pose – including the gathering of sensitive information – and been given “strong recommendations” to shoot it down.
It’s unlikely that the US will resort to blowing the balloon out of the sky, however, following an uncharacteristically forward-thinking assessment that the balloon might be carrying Very Heavy Things which could land on someone’s head.
US officials say that this isn’t the first time that China has flown stratospheric-level balloons over the US, but this time the balloon is hanging around a lot longer than they usually do, causing major concern as Montana is home to one of the nation’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
Smart money is on the balloon actually being an incredibly elaborate “gender reveal”, and when the balloon bursts, the US will get showered in rainbow confetti and long-winded pamphlets in broken English on The Perils of Transgender Acceptance from a Maoist Perspective.
Or radioactive dust. It’ll be one or the other.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GTG | Genetic Technologies | 0.0075 | 150% | 280,348,583 | $27,701,895 |
| ARE | Argonaut Resources | 0.003 | 50% | 5,933,931 | $12,723,743 |
| WBE | Whitebark Energy | 0.0015 | 50% | 2,000,000 | $6,464,886 |
| PLG | Pearlgullironlimited | 0.045 | 45% | 2,153,565 | $2,696,798 |
| BUY | Bounty Oil & Gas NL | 0.01 | 43% | 49,714,739 | $9,593,507 |
| SPA | Spacetalk Ltd | 0.075 | 42% | 89,578,508 | $13,578,565 |
| MMM | Marley Spoon | 0.205 | 32% | 47,519,415 | $60,970,758 |
| OAU | Ora Gold Limited | 0.009 | 29% | 660,776 | $6,889,619 |
| RAG | Ragnar Metals Ltd | 0.019 | 27% | 2,112,529 | $5,687,773 |
| BNR | Bulletin Res Ltd | 0.125 | 25% | 2,740,114 | $29,359,110 |
| LNU | Linius Tech Limited | 0.0025 | 25% | 26,800,001 | $5,958,826 |
| MTB | Mount Burgess Mining | 0.005 | 25% | 651,833 | $3,532,684 |
| SUH | Southern Hem Min | 0.021 | 24% | 27,899,527 | $8,030,886 |
| W2V | Way2Vatltd | 0.022 | 22% | 35,909 | $3,962,734 |
| PIM | Pinnacleminerals | 0.14 | 22% | 932,537 | $2,803,125 |
| RCL | Readcloud | 0.115 | 21% | 115,000 | $11,574,542 |
| RBX | Resource B | 0.12 | 20% | 649,675 | $5,706,983 |
| PSC | Prospect Res Ltd | 0.13 | 18% | 2,509,506 | $50,848,541 |
| VAR | Variscan Mines Ltd | 0.02 | 18% | 215,402 | $4,534,444 |
| BUX | Buxton Resources Ltd | 0.14 | 17% | 1,345,323 | $18,671,228 |
| SLM | Solismineralsltd | 0.11 | 16% | 417,332 | $4,410,893 |
| ATV | Activeportgroupltd | 0.15 | 15% | 150,753 | $22,806,402 |
| HCD | Hydrocarbon Dynamic | 0.015 | 15% | 2,275,523 | $7,631,787 |
| WWG | Wisewaygroupltd | 0.068 | 15% | 82,860 | $9,870,338 |
| PNT | Panthermetalsltd | 0.19 | 15% | 139,322 | $5,073,750 |
Not much has changed except for some numbers since lunchtime – but here’s a recap in case you were busy in the middle of the day or whatever.
Spacetalk (ASX:SPA) has picked up where it left off yesterday, climbing another 49% and (most likely) severely – and, it’s hard to argue, justifiably – inflating the ego of newly-minted CEO Simon Crowther, whose appointment to the role appears to be the catalyst for SPA’s meteoric rise from $0.027 to $0.079 over the past two days.
Also making the news this morning is Southern Hemisphere Mining (ASX:SUH), which has risen sharply by 35.5% today on the back of results of a rock chip sampling and mapping program at the company’s Llahuin project.
The company says it’s identified some high-grade samples, including 4.12% copper 0.36g/t gold and 1,495g/t silver from an outcropping vein at Cerro de Oro and 22LHR000183 located 20m along strike with 2.74% copper, 0.58g/t gold and 1,045g/t silver.
Southern Hemisphere has also3 investigated a North-South striking vein over a 90m strike (where exposed) and returned values of 16.6% copper, 0.94g/t gold and 1g/t silver and 16.3% copper, 1.13g/t gold and 4g/t silver respectively, located 1km North of Cerro de Oro.
And the endearingly-unusual Pearl Gull Iron (ASX:PLG) is back in the news again as well, up an eyebrow-raising 45% this morning on no particular news.
PLG – which listed September 2021 at $0.20 per share — recently raised $2m at $0.02 per share to keep the lights on, which means those investors who took part are now well and truly in the money, with the share price moving to around 0.045 a pop today. Nifty.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CCE | Carnegie Cln Energy | 0.001 | -33% | 2,467,962 | $23,463,861 |
| HHI | Health House Int Ltd | 0.008 | -27% | 944,502 | $1,554,627 |
| CLE | Cyclone Metals | 0.002 | -20% | 19,270,969 | $15,441,842 |
| AHQ | Allegiance Coal Ltd | 0.02 | -17% | 29,564,679 | $24,117,502 |
| PUA | Peak Minerals Ltd | 0.005 | -17% | 103,174 | $6,248,260 |
| ATU | Atrum Coal Ltd | 0.006 | -14% | 149,823 | $9,741,894 |
| AUK | Aumake Limited | 0.003 | -14% | 520,000 | $3,060,564 |
| DCX | Discovex Res Ltd | 0.003 | -14% | 145,000 | $11,558,988 |
| EYE | Nova EYE Medical Ltd | 0.24 | -14% | 63,622 | $40,847,366 |
| NZS | New Zealand Coastal | 0.003 | -14% | 11,818 | $3,944,518 |
| TFL | Tasfoods Ltd | 0.03 | -14% | 208,615 | $15,298,343 |
| LML | Lincoln Minerals | 0.044 | -14% | 5,950,742 | $29,324,168 |
| VN8 | Vonex Limited. | 0.063 | -14% | 322,509 | $26,413,489 |
| KP2 | Kore Potash PLC | 0.013 | -13% | 1,561,039 | $10,019,367 |
| JNO | Juno | 0.1 | -13% | 6,431 | $15,600,670 |
| CYQ | Cycliq Group Ltd | 0.007 | -13% | 355,582 | $2,780,133 |
| GNM | Great Northern | 0.0035 | -13% | 626,048 | $6,836,204 |
| TKL | Traka Resources | 0.007 | -13% | 610,500 | $5,782,196 |
| RCW | Rightcrowd | 0.035 | -13% | 100,000 | $10,490,450 |
| A3D | Aurora Labs Limited | 0.036 | -12% | 167,691 | $7,550,481 |
| NME | Nex Metals Explorat | 0.022 | -12% | 32,686 | $6,970,475 |
| BME | Blackmountainenergy | 0.038 | -12% | 78,750 | $2,365,000 |
| BTN | Butn Limited | 0.16 | -11% | 7,977 | $14,106,400 |
| VTM | Victory Metals Ltd | 0.2 | -11% | 173,220 | $12,075,457 |
| TZL | TZ Limited | 0.065 | -11% | 166,746 | $16,257,692 |
TRADING HALTS
VIP Gloves (ASX:VIP) – halt requested in connection with an announcement by VIP Gloves regarding a sale and leaseback transaction associated with the Company’s major assets.
AML3D (ASX:AL3) – Capital raise.
Amani Gold (ASX:ANL) – Halt requested pending the release of an announcement regarding a potential asset disposal.
