LAST ORDERS: A lighthearted look at what you missed from the market today

A brief one today, because there’s been a lot of loose threads to chase down about a whole bunch of stuff, and then suddenly the end of the day was looming but by then we’d all run out of coffee, and now we’re all tired and you should be too.

For a complete rundown on today’s events, Christian’s got you covered in Closing Bell… but in the meantime, loosen your tie, unbuckle your pants, kick off your shoes and prepare for a meeting with HR for the impromptu striptease you just did… it’s time to look over today’s Last Orders.

FROM THE HEADLINES

From the “This Can Only End Well” files comes this little radioactive nugget from the boffins at Utah’s BYU research labs, who reckon they’ve cracked the code for tiny, “safe”, nuclear reactors.

The researchers say that their reactors, which could fit onto the back of a truck (instead of taking up many buildings spread over even more acres of land) are tons safer than the ones that have a tendency to blow up and kill people.

The secret? Replacing scorching hot radioactive water reactors normally use for cooling with – wait for it – molten sand. We’re not sure which one we would want to be covered with should it all go BANG in the middle of the night, but molten sand is very low on the list of things I would want to be showered with, under any circumstances.

FROM THE MARKETS

Medibank (ASX:MPL) has been forced into a trading halt after a “cyber incident”. The company says unusual activity was noticed on its network, and – so far – it doesn’t like like any sensitive user data has been compromised.

So, we should all probably stand by for a few days, until we have a clearer picture of precisely how North Korea is going to weaponise a stolen spreadsheet listing how many times we’ve all been to the chiropractor in the past 12 months.

Probably the day’s most salient lesson was delivered by Dundas Minerals (ASX:DUN), which had more than a couple of investors feeling a bit hot and bothered on Tuesday when it released news that, at face value, looked really encouraging – so much so that DUN was up by more than 40% intraday at one point. Happy Days.

Yesterday, the very-clever Josh Chiat broke that story down really well – go read it now (if you haven’t already), and then come back here. We’ll wait.

…

Righto – I do hope you were paying attention, as there are a number of times in Josh’s story where the phrases “it’s early days” and “visual estimates of sulphide abundance should never be considered a proxy or substitute for laboratory analysis” kinda stick out.

And the reason for that became apparent this morning, when Dundas revealed that actual assay results arrived, and they were… I want to say “terrible”, so I will. They were terrible, in comparison to the numbers that saw investors piling on earlier in the week.

Investors at that point were working from pXRF results – which are often waaaaaay off the mark, but useful in the same sense that a sign saying “Caution! Lions!” is useful… but not if you are already having your face chewed off by the very lions the sign is there to warn you about.

And if were to extend that metaphor, it should come as no surprise that – just like our hypothetical lion attack victim – Dundas lost a lot of face, and value, this morning, which in turn confirms the old adage that you should never count your chickens before they’ve been ground up and fed into a mass spectrometer to determine just how much chicken each chicken contains.

Elsewhere, Beacon Minerals (ASX:BCN) reports that for the September 2022 quarter, things are looking pretty peachy at its Jaurdi Gold project.

Beacon has produced some 7,088 ounces of gold in that period, which is at the upper end of guidance, while the company was able to sell some 7,937 ounces of bright, shiny stuff at an average sale price of $2,535/oz for sale receipts of $20.12 million.

The company had 1,188 ounces of bullion on hand/gold in transit at the end of the same quarter.

TRADING HALTS

Radiopharm Theranostics (ASX:RAD) – We’re all being asked to stand by for RAD’s announcement in relation to the release of Pivalate Phase II Data in Brain Mets Trial, or – at the very least – an explanation of what any of the stuff they’re talking about means.

Aldoro Resources (ASX:ARN) – Aldoro’s holding a capital raise, seeking funds for a new ad campaign featuring the iconic “Aldoro Man”, the pasta-riding spaghetti western star.

Pacific Nickel Mines (ASX:PNM) – Capital raise to find more money as it seeks to refine a new recipe for PNM soup.

Zoom2u Technologies (ASX:Z2U) – Capital raise and potential acquisition and it’s all a bit complex and I just can’t even right now.

Astron Corporation (ASX:ATR) – Astron is raising capital to fund design revisions for its flagship robotic butt.

Wooboard Technologies (ASX:WOO) – Capital raise to fund its latest market-shaking invention: A skateboard built for two.

ELMO Software (ASX:ELO) – Trading halt called over media speculation of Elmo being acquired.

Medibank Private Limited (ASX:MPL) – Trading halt called because there’s been a cyber breach, which is like soooo last month, it’s not even funny, OMG.