As the end of the day approaches, and with the benchmark struggling like a tired dog to keep its head above water, it’s time for us all to take a knee and rest awhile in front of a crackling fireplace and reminisce with a loved one about all the money we lost today.

For a full wrap up of what happened in the wild old world of the ASX, Christian “The Cheddar Man” Edwards has it all covered in Closing Bell.

In the meantime, though, to help you unwind, here’s a few bits and pieces from the ASX and beyond that have landed on our desks, and probably not yours, lovingly curated for your enjoyment and edification.

Let’s kick off with the best of today’s social media efforts.

 

ON THE SOCIALS

Aside from Elon Musk making a tit of himself, Twitter can also be a source of other highly amusing things. Like this belter from Lindsay David.

 


It’s funny, coz it’s true. It’s also sad, coz it’s true.

Join us, as we contemplate this dichotomy; the duality of man and the inherent sadness of the human condition.

 

PR BRICK OF THE WEEK

We get a lot of press releases through the Stockhead newsroom, some of which are massively important and deserving of our immediate attention.

Some of them, though… not so much. So, once a week (as time permits) we’re going to enlighten you with the best of the worst of the world of PR, kicking off with this absolute masterclass in how to make something terrible sound ridiculous, and still terrible.

It’s part of a conversation on innovation in food and agricultural technologies, in a world where a growing population and climate change is set to ensure that we’ll be eating each other by the year 2050, and Vegans will be prized as the “New Veal”.

But back to the press release, which is about the need to build “vertical farms” and grow nutrient-rich vegetables (to feed to the Vegans).

And in amongst the guff, this outrageous boast stands tall and proud: “Arugula, which contains 100% more vitamin C than field-grown varieties – its rich flavour and attractive packaging promote it as the ‘the new popcorn!’”.

Arugula, for those out of the loop, is a fancy name for Rocket, that godawful peppery garden herb disaster that found its way into every single side salad in the country about 10 years ago and – like the noxious weed that it is – has stubbornly refused to bugger off.

Get thee behind me, Satan.             Pic: Isabelle Rozenbaum/ PhotoAlto Agency RF Collections, via Getty Images

It’s leafy, it’s green and it tastes like lettuce grown in battery acid – but, most importantly, by any possible metric ever – it is the precise opposite of popcorn.

Unless it’s rocket-flavoured popcorn, but we doubt that there’s a maniac on the planet evil enough to make that abomination a reality.

 

STOCKS AND STUFF

Fine. Larvotto (ASX:LRV), named (I assume) for a fabulous beach in Monaco where the rich and famous sunbathe 51 weekends a year, and get hammered on champagne during the annual Formula 1 race on the other, has scooped up a hugely handsome $3.4 million to give its lithium play a huge nudge forward.

Canadian-based Lithium Royalty Corp (LRC) and Waratah Capital’s Electrification and Decarbonisation Fund (WaCaElDeFu) have collectively signed on to an REO Speedwagon agreement with lots of helpful bullet points to explain it all.

  • $700,000 cash payment by LRC for 1% gross revenue royalty over lithium and all other pegmatite materials (Material);
  • $2M cornerstone equity investment and free attaching options; and
  • $700,000 cash payment by LRC as consideration for a 20% offtake investment.

The devil, of course, is in the details… so here they are, too. Under the deal, LRC and WaCaElDeFu will:

  • Acquire a newly created 1% gross revenue royalty payable in relation to any lithium and other pegmatite related minerals extracted or sold by Larvotto from its Eyre Project for $700,000, (Royalty);
  • Subscribe for 11,111,111 new ordinary shares (Share) at an issue price of $0.18, plus one (1) free attaching option to raise $2M (Equity Investment); and
  • Acquire a 20% life of mine offtake right for lithium in any form including ore, concentrates, sulphates, chemicals and other pegmatite minerals that are located within or mined and other pegmatite related minerals extracted or sold by Larvotto from its Eyre Project for $700,000 (Offtake Investment).

It’s a big cash injection for Larvotto that the company says is just the boost it needs to get Eyre Project really flying, sometime in the future.

Elsewhere, ETF provider Global X ETFs Australia has taken bold steps to bring its management fees down and help keep its products inside the acceptable expense range for consumers.

As of October 10, 2022, the management fee for Global X US Treasury Bond ETF (Currency Hedged) (ASX:USTB) has been lowered from 0.3% to 0.2% and the management fee for Global X USD High Yield Bond ETF (Currency Hedged) (ASX:USHY) has been lowered from 0.55% to 0.4%.

It might not look like much, but it should represent a pleasant change for anyone already into those ETFs, while the company is hoping that it’ll make it more attractive for anyone looking to get into the market as well.

Prescient Therapeutics (ASX:PTX) has some good news as well, announcing that its Top-Up Placement raised $2.5 million, bringing the total proceeds from the Top-Up Placement and Share Purchase Plan (SPP) to approximately $11.3 million.

The placement was conducted to satisfy demand from qualifying shareholders seeking to invest more than the $30,000 SPP limit, and was conducted at the same issue price of 17.5 cents per share, a 5.4% discount to the last trading price.

And last one for today is CFOAM (ASX:CFO), which has been corresponding with the ASX so much in recent months that we’re beginning to suspect that there might be something going on between those two.

This time around, it’s CFO responding to an ASX query because apparently the company has handed in some incomplete homework, according to the regulators.

CFO has replied with this glorious response, saying it is “not required to lodge its Corporate Governance Statement for the year ended 30 June 2022 in the Audited Financial Report. This will be lodged with the Annual Report which is not yet due for lodgement.”

“So, ner to you, ASX. You’ll get that bit when we’re good and ready,” CFO totally didn’t say but how great would it be if they did?

But wait, there’s more… the ASX had a few questions about what’s been included in the report that CFO did file – specifically the value it assigned to CFO’s equity interest of 10.24% in Innovaero Technologies, and whether that should be recognised at $1,071,771 within the financial assets at fair value through profit or loss on the consolidated statement of financial position.

To which CFO said (and I need to paraphrase here, because the actual reply is a challenging read), thatthe directors reviews info from Innovaero, including internal financials and the share register and a few other odds and sods, and then had a chat about it amongst themselves.

The landed on Innovaero being “accounted for at cost of acquisition being the best estimate of fair value as the Group” – but, even though there was tons of info there, CFO couldn’t measure that value because it’s got a minority holding.

Whether the ASX is cool with that remains to be seen, but we suspect it won’t be the last love letter the pair send each other.

 

TRADING HALTS

Athena Resources (ASX:AHN) – Oh Athena! Goddess of battle strategy and wisdom! Grant this company more money, because it’s having a capital raise and it would be sad if no one turned up.

Culpeo Minerals (ASX:CPO) – Culpeo is also holding a capital raise, because there’s nothing better than some extra scratch when you’re feelin’ kinda foxy.

Cygnus Gold (ASX:CY5) – Aaaand, yep. It’s another capital raise, this one starring Cygnus, the swan that swims the Milky Way.

Valor Resources (ASX:VAL) – And finally, Valor’s called Time Out on Buying Bits of us because there’s news on the way from Surprise Creek… something the severely underwater residents of NSW know a little something about.

 

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