Closing Bell: The ASX delivers ‘historically mediocre’ -0.3% result after jobs data stirs the RBA’s rate-hiking loins

ASX dips 0.3% on investor fears the RBA’s been handed an excuse to hike rates next month
Energy boomed on 2% crude price rise, but InfoTech emerged as overall winner
Market newbie Evergreen Lithium off to a flyer, thanks to a +90% welcome to the bourse

Local markets have been battered (in the bad way, not in the oily, crispy and very yummy way) by investors today, who are betting that fresh unemployment data (things are steady) is all the excuse the RBA needs to resume applying its bespoke, luxury European-designed electric nipple clamps to Aussie borrowers in a few weeks.

By lunch, the benchmark was at -0.3% with a downward trend so steep, at least four Finnish men with comically large skis reportedly perished trying to navigate the slope.

The market dipped lower and slower over the course of the post-lunch session, before a pre-bell spurt saw it snap back to -0.3% – not ideal, but better than feared.

That was largely due to an afternoon surge from InfoTech, which ended the day as Most Successful Sector, up 0.99% (because nobody’s perfect), with Energy (+0.88%) and Real Estate (+0.54%) close by.

Bottom of the table was Consumer Staples, which improved slightly after lunch to rest at -1.2% for the day, below Consumer Discretionary (-0.65%) and Utilities (-0.58%).

Overseas, Asian markets are a little mixed, with the Nikkei up 0.26% and Chinese markets closer to our local efforts, after Shanghai dipped 0.37% and the Hang Seng slid 0.64%.

FROM THE HEADLINES

In news that’s sure to send shudders down the spines of anyone who survived 1970s Australia, global homewares brand Tupperware’s seal is possibly set to utter one final Burp, before being silenced forever.

After 77-years of producing some of the world’s best home food-storage containers (until you put spaghetti bolognese in them, and they become permanently orange-stained nightmares, one of which shockingly gained sentience and became President of the United States), the company says there’s “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern”.

After burning through three CEOs in five years, and launching a fresh range of useless goo-gaws upon an unsuspecting public, Tupperware’s failure to come to grips with the idea that people no longer enjoy getting a hard-sell experience from friends and family in the comfort of their home looks to be most likely cause for the company’s imminent demise.

When news broke earlier this week, Tupperware’s shares plummeted 50%, stacking misery nearly inside the company’s existing misery, for easy storage in any modern kitchen.

Closer to home, unemployment data from the Australian Bureau of Shouting About Numbers showed that things remained steady through the month of March, with jobless numbers flat at 3.5%.

This caused a number of things to happen:

The Aussie dollar jumped above 67 US cents, putting a Las Vegas holiday within reach for hundreds of Australian families.
ABS labour stats wonk Lauren Ford explained the employment to population ratio and the participation rate remain near record highs.
Everyone’s least favourite grandparent on Facebook bitched about rates going up because “young people just don’t want to not work these days”.
The ASX sagged, because investors reckon steady unemployment will be a key motivator for the RBA Board to bust out the torque wrench it keeps for tightening the nation’s nuts.
Then I stopped listening to people talk about unemployment because a good song came on the radio.

Looking overseas again, and you know things are crook when a company that literally makes money is complaining about super-tight market conditions.

Shares in De La Rue – a British company with a French name that means ‘From the Street’, a sly nod to the world’s oldest cash-only profession – fell sharply after the company had a moan that countries that use its services to print bank notes aren’t printing as much money as they used to.

In summary: A company that makes money is losing money because countries who buy money don’t need as much money because people who used to like money don’t like money anymore.

What a time to be alive.

Why they don’t just ‘accidentally’ rattle out a few pallets of fresh Euros for themselves is anyone’s guess.

(I know, it’s illegal – but I look forward to today’s round of “Your a fkn dropkick, mate” emails, because we both know you’re going to send it anyway, ya little scamp!)

And lastly, Headline of the Day goes to The ABC, with this gem: “Why Lea, 79, wants more people her age to consider e-scooters”.

I will cheerfully admit that I didn’t read the article, but I assume it’s because Lea despises her friends and wants them all dead.

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
ARE	Argonaut Resources	0.0015	50%	1,000,000	$6,361,871
CLZ	Classic Min Ltd	0.0015	50%	117,271,647	$3,093,095
VPR	Volt Power Group	0.0015	50%	13,793	$10,716,208
EG1	Evergreenlithium	0.485	49%	3,657,053	$18,274,750
ELE	Elmore Ltd	0.015	36%	13,401,553	$15,393,222
OMA	Omegaoilgaslimited	0.2625	35%	23,678,178	$29,820,207
YPB	YPB Group Ltd	0.004	33%	250,000	$1,857,747
TG1	Techgen Metals Ltd	0.087	32%	695,140	$4,244,535
TIG	Tigers Realm Coal	0.013	30%	1,120,001	$130,667,024
DUN	Dundasminerals	0.17	26%	657,870	$6,404,974
BFC	Beston Global Ltd	0.015	25%	6,414,246	$23,964,563
MTH	Mithril Resources	0.0025	25%	1,165,666	$6,526,180
PUA	Peak Minerals Ltd	0.005	25%	1,167,000	$4,165,506
PRO	Prophecy Internation	0.68	24%	169,221	$40,486,014
REZ	Resourc & En Grp Ltd	0.016	23%	1,445,426	$6,497,475
WCN	White Cliff Min Ltd	0.008	23%	8,331,099	$5,096,354
SI6	SI6 Metals Limited	0.0055	22%	2,850,000	$6,729,276
DGR	DGR Global Ltd	0.055	22%	723,424	$46,966,207
MHK	Metalhawk.	0.145	21%	52,018	$7,792,247
OLI	Oliver'S Real Food	0.035	21%	287,783	$12,781,226
ADS	Adslot Ltd.	0.006	20%	1,050,000	$11,021,742
RBR	RBR Group Ltd	0.003	20%	90,655	$3,996,012
BGT	Bio-Gene Technology	0.095	19%	151,500	$14,162,666
PEK	Peak Rare Earths Ltd	0.635	19%	1,056,933	$111,447,150
CRB	Carbine Resources	0.013	18%	27,333	$3,468,031

At the close of play today, it’s the same three companies at the top of the ladder, but the order’s been shuffled about a bit while the market digested its lunch.

Taking out line honours for the day is Evergreen Lithium (ASX:EG1), the market newbie which listed on 11 April after an IPO at $0.30 a pop, and has roared up in value by 46.2% today to bring its rise since listing to a very tidy 90.0%, which is about as warm a welcome anyone could hope for from the ASX at the moment.

Evergreen went public with a $7m initial public offering and three projects on the books – Bynoe and Fortune in the Northern Territory and Kenny in Western Australia.

In second place is this morning’s standout Small Caps winner, Elmore (ASX:ELE), which came out of an ASX-enforced suspension yesterday and has gone bounding up the ladder with a 50% surge this morning.

That’s since eased marginally to a 45.5% lift, leaving the company trading at $0.016 per share.

Elmore got bounced from the trading floor mid-March because it was late with its homework, but was allowed back onto the field after filing its Appendix 4D and Half Year Report for the period ended 31 December 2022.

Between being benched in March and returning today, Elmore kept itself busy by acquiring the Peko project in the Northern Territory and “all of the companies related to the project held by the previous owners”.

And holding onto third place for the day is Omega Oil & Gas (OMA), which has added 45.6% this morning on news that the company’s Canyon-2 well has intersected 293m of gas shows within the Kianga Formation and upper Back Creek Group.

“Encouraging gas shows continued into the upper Back Creek Group, therefore a decision was made to deepen the TD of the well to drill through the upper Back Creek Group,” the company says.

The upper Back Creek Group was intersected at a depth of 3588m, and is now a “potential additional reservoir, with significant gas peaks being recorded while drilling over an interval of 72m”.

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
PNTR	Panthermetalsltd	0.001	-50%	2,300,467	$54,625
IS3	I Synergy Group Ltd	0.015	-29%	396,366	$6,070,688
AYM	Australia United Min	0.003	-25%	22,738	$7,370,310
EME	Energy Metals Ltd	0.12	-25%	21,205	$33,549,330
AIV	Activex Limited	0.025	-22%	30,000	$6,912,082
NSX	NSX Limited	0.047	-20%	205,051	$23,618,538
AUA	Audeara	0.056	-20%	85,354	$7,174,953
MCT	Metalicity Limited	0.002	-20%	330,375	$8,761,348
OJC	The Original Juice	0.089	-19%	169,931	$26,904,987
JPR	Jupiter Energy	0.022	-19%	105,615	$33,205,953
GIB	Gibb River Diamonds	0.05	-18%	446,531	$12,902,076
EDE	Eden Inv Ltd	0.005	-17%	137,812	$17,588,666
SKN	Skin Elements Ltd	0.012	-15%	35,000	$6,603,267
AQC	Auspaccoal Ltd	0.155	-14%	544,116	$62,515,972
MDI	Middle Island Res	0.031	-14%	127,500	$4,407,056
JRV	Jervois Global Ltd	0.095	-14%	26,424,309	$228,780,207
AWJ	Auric Mining	0.055	-13%	198,046	$8,244,154
FFF	Forbidden Foods	0.014	-13%	338,045	$2,127,689
TOY	Toys R Us	0.014	-13%	661,887	$13,809,387
IRD	Iron Road Ltd	0.105	-13%	184,183	$96,412,363
IXU	Ixup Limited	0.035	-13%	962,716	$41,419,707
JXT	Jaxstaltd	0.044	-12%	345,597	$17,750,498
SPQ	Superior Resources	0.044	-12%	7,789,929	$85,061,021
TG6	Tgmetalslimited	0.097	-12%	37,197	$4,433,170
AR3	Austrare	0.49	-12%	3,092,856	$52,836,861

LAST ORDERS

Following on from yesterday’s ponderings on why the ASX gave Avira Minerals (ASX:AVW) a bit of a “Yo. Wait a minute…” after it announced that diamond drilling had intersected massive sulphide at Puolalaki, the company has complied with a request for more information and clarification.

AVW out out a chunky table that outlined, among other things, the “Total Visual Sulphide Estimate” from the drill cores from the exploration.

But it’s this sentence which looks like what the ASX was digging for when it sin-binned AVW yesterday: “Avira cautions that visual estimates of sulphide material abundance should never be considered a proxy or substitute for laboratory analysis.”

So, I suspect that my theory from yesterday – in which I suggested the ASX might have politely reminded the company that “you can’t just eyeball stuff like this” may have been on the money.

I haven’t been in this game as long as most people who play it for a living, but I’ve already lost count of the number of times investors have gone bananas over unscientific claims – or, even worse, claims that look reliable but actually really aren’t.

So, if you or a friend are making massively risky investments on the back of xPRF readings, you should call the Magic Rubbery Figures Help Hotline.

Meanwhile, in ETF news, Global X has launched a new offering on the market today – the not-at-all-a-massive-tongue-twister “Global X Australia ex Financials & Resources ETF (ASX:OZXX)”.

As Global X’s Libby Hopper explains, it’s been designed as a vehicle for diversifying a portfolio, leaving out the heartbreaking mercurial nature of certain sectors, such as Financials, Energy and Materials.

The thinking behind it is that without those behemoths chewing up valuable real estate, punters will get exposure to parts of the market that they otherwise might not even consider.

That includes the kind of small- to mid-size listed companies that bring bigger returns on the basis that they lean more towards the risky end of the market than parking your hard-earned in the Big Four Banks and wondering why they’re getting rich while you don’t.