Closing Bell: Aussies are up but Hong Kong sinks in a mixed up regional day

The ASX 200 starts the week with a bang
Materials surge has investors beaming
China learns a brutal lesson about leadership from Hong Kong

It’s the end of the day, and we’re all clearly super-happy because it’s been a positive run for Aussie markets, thanks to an enormous boost from the Materials sector this morning that brought with it enough momentum to keep an even keel through to close.

When the bell rang this morning, the ASX 200 shot up 2.2%, largely on the back of a ~4.0% surge in Materials, but a number of other sectors got in on the get-good action as well.

Things have eased somewhat as the day wore on, though, with the benchmark looking ripe to close out Monday 1.6% higher, after drifting slowly south for the bulk of the day’s trading until a similarly gentle waft skyward as the final theme music began to play.

Leading the charge among teh Big Players today was Novonix (ASX:NVX), which is roaring up the charts following a US$150 million (roughly $236 million of our puny Earth dollars) dollop of gravy from the plate of Uncle Sam, which was announced last week.

We have more of a look into that a little later on, because the ASX has been asking some questions about who knew what when…

Also doing well at the top end of town were Evolution Mining (ASX:EVN) up 8.0% and Syrah Resources (ASX:SYR) up 9.32%. Stanmore (ASX:SMR) was up around 6.8% at lunchtime, but has since eased to a nice but not really amazing +3.34% for the day.

And child surveillance techy Life360’s (ASX:360) gains also eased somewhat over the afternoon – up 13.4% on news that the company has decided to charge parents even more money to keep their children tracked like pet cavoodles. 360’s gains eased from 13.8% at lunch to a heavily surveilled 12.5% by close.

LOOKING OVERSEAS

In Asia, the big news is market reactions to Chinese leader Xi Jinping ordering his subordinates to crown him God Emperor of All He Surveys Forever and Ever Amen.

If anyone needed a reason to doubt that might not be the very best idea to come out of China in recent times, the Hong Kong market’s 5.0% plunge today should be “Exhibit A”.

It’s very clear that Hong Kong investors (and, by extension, pretty much everyone else in Hong Kong) aren’t feelin’ the Xi Jinping love, after it became abundantly clear that the Chinese leader has purged the ranks and – as Bloomberg puts it – “stacked his leadership ranks with loyalists”.

Whether Hong Kong’s market sinking into the sea today had much of an effect on local markets isn’t clear, but it’s hard not to pin at least some of the blame for the muted results throughout local markets as the day wore on, in comparison to such a strong start before Chinese markets opened.

Weirdly – almost too weirdly – Shanghai’s markets didn’t dip nearly as far, down a comparatively “no no, everything’s fine, nothing to see here” 0.79%.

Japan, on the other hand, managed to squeak out a 0.68% gain, despite the regional air being thick with building tensions. The next couple of weeks could be pretty bumpy for everyone in that part of the world.

In commodities, things are mixed as well, with oil reversing course from this morning to drop 0.48%, following gas which has slumped by 2.32%.

But shiny things are all shiny once more, with gold up 0.41%, silver climbing 1.65% and copper getting better from its downward blip this morning to end with an upward blip of 0.20%.

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%	35,000,000	$5,428,538
CLE	Cyclone Metals	0.003	50%	21,322,278	$12,233,474
W2V	Way2Vatltd	0.036	44%	658,223	$4,446,105
IS3	I Synergy Group Ltd	0.043	34%	24,999	$8,976,286
NVX	Novonix Limited	2.95	33%	13,328,672	$1,075,562,588
KEY	KEY Petroleum	0.002	33%	528,857	$2,951,892
NZS	New Zealand Coastal	0.004	33%	515,860	$3,381,015
MKL	Mighty Kingdom Ltd	0.038	27%	1,580,577	$4,624,284
DVL	Dorsavi Ltd	0.015	25%	76,000	$5,220,075
RDN	Raiden Resources Ltd	0.01	25%	22,990,219	$13,059,537
CCZ	Castillo Copper Ltd	0.021	24%	6,241,516	$22,091,591
NWM	Norwest Minerals	0.033	22%	405,700	$5,996,899
KED	Keypath Education	1.095	22%	4,567	$193,029,895
CTT	Cettire	1.545	22%	2,790,003	$484,172,539
NES	Nelson Resources.	0.0085	21%	12,123,302	$2,060,080
TIG	Tigers Realm Coal	0.017	21%	2,875,680	$182,933,833
SGQ	St George Min Ltd	0.051	21%	6,876,244	$29,400,748
NMR	Native Mineral Res	0.145	21%	334,297	$6,036,807
HT8	Harris Technology Gl	0.018	20%	697,839	$4,474,432
SHH	Shree Minerals Ltd	0.009	20%	3,402,860	$9,288,652
ICE	Icetana Limited	0.06	20%	885,491	$9,966,421
AUK	Aumake Limited	0.006	20%	112,479	$3,857,235
MIO	Macarthur Minerals	0.155	19%	278,837	$21,534,953
AV1	Adveritas Ltd	0.095	19%	2,221,803	$35,608,680

The big Small Caps winner today was Way2VAT (ASX:W2V), cranking out a massive 44.0% lift on news that it’s signed on with a major new enterprise client, global fashion retailer Max Mara.

The deal is set to see Max MAra use Way2VAT’s automated accounts payable, corporate and travel expenses and VAT claim and recovery solutions – and, importantly, will see the fashionista become W2V’s largest client in Asia and join its global top-10 list as well.

The lengthy list of Little Diggers Doin’ Good from this morning dispersed a little as the day progressed, but Castillo Copper (ASX:CCZ) did best of that bunch with a 29.4% result for Monday.

Other noteworthy winners were St George Mining (ASX:SGQ), up 21.4%, Norwest Minerals (ASX:NWM) up a Richie Benaut-pleasing 22.22% and Tigers Realm Coal (ASX:TIG) up 21.4%.

Elsewhere, Toys’R’Us (ASX:TOY) lost some steam as the day wore on, dropping back from its 19.8% peak around lunchtime to finish a still-welcome 15.2% up on news that it’s going to be implanted into nine store-in-store (SIS) efforts through WH Smith retail outlets across the United Kingdom.

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
OXX	Octanex Ltd	0.011	-42%	547,813	$4,920,576
MEB	Medibio Limited	0.001	-33%	122,242	$4,980,891
DTI	DTI Group Ltd	0.016	-27%	78,823	$9,868,131
BTR	Brightstar Resources	0.015	-25%	1,518,881	$13,529,952
DEL	Delorean Corporation	0.085	-23%	1,120,301	$23,729,301
BCC	Beam Communications	0.19	-21%	338,597	$20,741,261
BFC	Beston Global Ltd	0.031	-21%	6,387,668	$33,862,969
CMD	Cassius Mining Ltd	0.028	-20%	844,955	$14,130,932
ICN	Icon Energy Limited	0.012	-20%	868,573	$11,520,205
FLX	Felix Group	0.12	-20%	13,660	$19,917,566
CT1	Constellation Tech	0.004	-20%	364,300	$7,356,002
M2M	Mt Malcolm Mines NL	0.061	-19%	401,855	$4,670,700
MGT	Magnetite Mines	0.0165	-18%	47,243,768	$75,835,491
ACU	Acumentis Group Ltd	0.095	-17%	42,500	$20,161,506
AGR	Aguia Res Ltd	0.05	-17%	6,313	$24,057,542
GLV	Global Oil & Gas	0.0025	-17%	854,917	$5,620,064
RIM	Rimfire Pacific	0.008	-16%	2,638,936	$17,159,325
FRM	Farm Pride Foods	0.11	-15%	90,487	$7,173,423
BPH	BPH Energy Ltd	0.0205	-15%	6,490,015	$20,713,529
ICR	Intelicare Holdings	0.03	-14%	187,984	$4,216,321
IEC	Intra Energy Corp	0.006	-14%	1,197,200	$4,240,471
VMC	Venus Metals Cor Ltd	0.12	-14%	28,973	$22,411,016
MM8	Medallion Metals.	0.155	-14%	65,373	$25,191,911
A3D	Aurora Labs Limited	0.033	-13%	525,093	$6,998,007
TSK	Task Group Holdings	0.275	-13%	2,865	$111,762,571

LAST ORDERS

As promised, it’s time to take a look into what’s been happening with Novonix, after the ASX sent the company a postcard (from Fiji, of all places!) looking for answers about who knew what was on the cards for NVX in relation to the massive US grant that was announced to the ASX on 20 October.

We ran short on time at the end of last week to go over this story, so here it is in Reader’s Digest form: The ASX wanted to know whether news of the grant had reached Novonix in advance of its announcement… because a $235 million windfall is a BFD in anyone’s books, and it most definitely market-moving news.

NVX wrote back on Friday 21 October, and said that yes – news of the grant was known in advance by the company, which had been informed of the grant “on 14 October 2022 at 12:56am (AEST) – but the US Department of Energy didn’t release the information to the public until 20 October 2022 at approximately 1:00am (AEST).

Now, a reasonable person would look at that and wonder how on earth news that big couldn’t possibly leak out – and, more importantly – with Novonix hadn’t broken the land speed record getting to the fax machine to tell the ASX.

Turns out, it had a very good reason not to: “The correspondence from the DOE stated that NVX was prohibited from disclosing its selection for negotiation of a financial award prior to the DOE making a public announcement about the matter. NVX was advised by DOE that “failure to abide by this requirement could result in forfeiture of the opportunity.”

And so, a reasonable person could understand why NVX wasn’t on the blower about it at the first available opportunity – because losing a $236 million windfall is arguable far worse than the onerous task of informing the ASX why it looks like the rules had been bent, if not broken.

We trust that clears that up for everyone.

Also from late mail on Friday but far too awesome not to mention, is the Exciting New Heights that have been scaled in the Font Size War of 2022.

A few weeks back, (on 05 October, to be precise) we brought you the story of Quantum Graphite (ASX:QGL) and Lincoln Minerals (ASX:LML) engaging in a war of Letters to the Shareholders using massive fonts to make sure they were getting their message across.

On Friday – late in the evening, I might add – it was Demetallica (ASX:DRM) fending off apparently unwanted advances from AIC Mines (ASX:A1M), after AIC sent off this startingly blunt letter that left readers with absolutely no query as to what was being asked of them:

ASX closing bell — PLEASE TYPE LOUDER. WE CANNOT HEAR YOU IN THE BACK. Pic: ASX Announcements

I’m not sure if anyone else was taken in with the subliminal advertising clearly at work here, but it left me in a highly suggestible state for the entire weekend, and I am now the puzzled owner of several greyhounds.