You can hear this photo, right? It's not just me? Pic via Getty Images.
LAST ORDERS: A quick-fire look back at a day that really should have gone better
News
share
Well… that was Tuesday, everyone. We trust you’ve had a great day, and hope that the whims of the Market Gods mean that you’ve managed to dodge the let-downs and can still put your hand in your pocket to pay for a pizza when you get home.
But for now, you can take a 5-minute breather, and catch up on all the stuff from the markets and elsewhere that might have escaped your attention while you were looking after things that were, arguably, far more important.
FROM THE HEADLINES
Big news of the day: the RBA met this morning and coughed out a 25 basis point punch to the treasure chest for everyone at the mercy of the Dread Pirate RateRise.
It’s the eighth on the trot from the RBA, and will bring the official rate up to 3.1% – adding about $75 (about 1.6 cases of VB stubbies, or half an avocado) to the monthly mortgage payments for every $500,000 home-owners are in hock to the lender.
The RBA didn’t even say sorry or nuthin’, which is very rude.
Another day, another round of tech industry layoffs, this time from Brisbane-based crypto exchange Swyftx which has tossed 35% of its workforce out the door today.
Company joint CEOs Alex Harper and Angus Goldman gathered their crew together and broke the news that 90 of them are now surplus to current requirements, partially blaming the FTX debacle for the company’s need for such a rapid downsizing.
Harper, acting as Swyftx mouthpiece du jour, recently admitted that the company had a pretty severe case of Icarus Syndrome, flying too close to the sun by expanding way, way too quickly through a $1.5 billion merger with online share trading platform Superhero in June.
Pocket-sized Australian TV presenter Grant Denyer has gone on someone’s podcast to tell the world that his jet-setting lifestyle while a TV weatherman nearly killed him.
Denyer says that his doctors tested him and said that his insides were operating at about 7% capacity, which is – objectively – terrifying news for anybody, with a mortality rate north of 90% for people in that kind of physical condition.
News.com.au says Denyer was at risk of “massive organ failure”, which suggests something that the rest of us really didn’t need to know on a Tuesday arvo.
And there’s trouble brewing for Portuguese soccer star Ronaldo (the newer one… not the old Brazilian one), with the nation’s head coach Fernando Santos reportedly pretty dirty on the mega-buck goal scoring machine over his attitude during the tournament’s matches.
Ronaldo, The Australian says, got pretty lippy with the coaching staff when he was subbed off during his team’s surprise loss to South Korea – and that’s caused more grief for the star forward.
But, he can probably rest easy knowing that he’s set to have an enormous pile of money to cry on, with rumours swirling that he’s about to sign a deal with roughly the GDP of island nation Palau, to play soccer in Saudi Arabia.
It’s probably best that he does sign on – because both his home country and his now-former club Manchester United don’t seem too thrilled at the prospect of him hanging around much longer at all.
LAST ORDERS
Big news for Octanex (ASX:OXX) – chairman Geoffrey Albers has brought a proposal to shareholders to allow him to buy up all the shares and take the company private.
Octanex, over recent years, has seen a significant shift in focus, moving away from offshore oily stuff to focus on poking around for minerals with a focus on the Sefton Project in the East Yilgarn region of Western Australia.
To date, that has not been a roaring success, with Octanex relying on regular financial assistance from a range of different companies, all (or almost all) of which belong to Albers.
At present, the company says that the cupboards are bare – OXX now has no exploration assets, having executed documents to relinquish its remaining exploration tenements.
What it does have is liabilities of $760,069 on account of loans from Albers Group and money due to employees on account of accrued employee entitlements – so now does look like a good time to wrap things up and mothball it all for the time being.
The offer from Albers to shareholders (which own 39.98% of the company) are yet to be finalised, and the buy-up would be subject to shareholders and board approvals – but expect details to be forthcoming in due course. Octanex is trading 14.2% down.
Happier news for QEM (ASX:QEM) though, after it says that the latest rounds of oil shale extraction testing at the company’s bench-scale pilot plant testing has delivered the best oil extraction rates to date.
“The highest extraction result was approximately 180% of yields reported under a Modified Fischer Assay,” QEM says, adding that the “extraction results will complement petrology analysis, mineral characterisation and beneficiation work being undertaken on spent shale.” QEM is up 2.4% today.
And to finish off with a golden announcement, VanEck Gold Bullion ETF (ASX code: NUGG) will list on ASX tomorrow.
VaneEck said the ETF will be physically backed by gold bullion sourced only from Australian gold producers and which can be converted by investors, from their ETF holdings, into physical gold at The Perth Mint.
VanEck, Asia Pacific CEO and managing director Arian Neiron said “NUGG is an exciting launch, extending on VanEck’s global leadership in gold investing that stretches more than 50 years, encompassing gold equites and bullion across ETFs and active funds.
“VanEck launched the US’s first gold equity fund in 1968, and that fund is still around today. Our gold miners ETF (GDX), since its launch in 2006, is one of the most actively traded ETFs in the world,” he said.
TRADING HALTS
Suvo Strategic Minerals (ASX:SUV) – Cap Raise.
Forbidden Foods (ASX:FFF) – Cap Raise.
Bellevue Gold (ASX:BGL) – Cap Raise.
CardieX (ASX:CDX) – CDX has an announcement about the finalisation of a material contract in relation to its clinical trial revenue on the way. How excitement!
Earlypay (ASX:EPY) – Earlypay has news of potential customer development. We’ll keep you posted.
4DS Memory (ASX:4DS) – Request for time to respond to an ASX price query.
Bellavista Resources (ASX:BVR) – Pushed into a trade suspension late in the day, with no reason supplied at the time of writing.
