It is hump day, which the ASX 200 benchmark celebrated with a series of increasingly erratic and – dare we say it, erotic – humps on its way to what looks like an unlikely 0.38% win.

With another day in the bag, though, it’s time for an evening by the fireside once more, to bond over a gentle conversation about the bits and pieces of the day’s news – market-related or otherwise – that you, Dear Reader, might have missed.

Because it’s important in life to stop and take the time to eat the roses, while you can.

 

FROM THE SOCIALS

Slapdown of the Day (begrudgingly) goes to the World’s Richest Lantern-Jawed Currant Bun, over some heavy implications he’s been gossiping with Vladimir Putin more than he’d like to let on.

 

 

That is definitely gonna leave a mark.

 

FROM THE HEADLINES

Good news, everybody! Buckingham Palace has announced that Our Latest King™ will be officially given a brand new hat on 06 May, 2023 – a date sufficiently far enough away to ensure that we have plenty of time to organise to be busy doing something else, because if it’s not a public holiday there will be rioting in the streets.

In Eastern Europe, there are new mutterings that things between Ukraine and its northern neighbour Belarus aren’t as cordial as some may have hoped. That’s probably because Russian leader Vladmimir Putin likes Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko more than he likes Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy – and that’s probably because Lukashenko gave Putin a tractor for his birthday, and all Zelenskyy got him was a blown up bridge.

And finally, October 12 is both National Pet Obesity Awareness Day and National Pulled Pork Day… the obvious inference being that it’s time for a revolution, where the workers of the world will unite, round up all the fat cats and put the lot of them to the sword. #EatTheRich.

 

FROM THE MARKETS

Critical Minerals Group (ASX:CMG) has kicked off an aircore (think ‘hardcore’ music, but with air guitars only) drilling program at its flagship Lindfield vanadium project, to supply early stage ore for metallurgical studies and pilot plant work, while increasing the geological confidence of the deposit, aiming for a resource upgrade from its existing JORC Inferred Resource of 210Mt at 0.39% V2O5.

Critical’s got plans to poke 24 holes in the ground (23 aircore and 1 open) with three of those holes (they haven’t said which ones) set to be converted to water monitoring holes. The company is planning on getting results reported by the end of Q4 CY22, but that hasn’t stopped speculators from piling in this morning. Critical’s already trading 8.5% higher in anticipation of something big.

On the topic of drilling holes in the earth – carefully, so as not to let the Demons escape and wreak diabolical havoc, of course – Rex Minerals (ASX:RXM) has informed the market that it’s received assay results from its Hog Ranch Gold Property in Nevada, USA.

No, really. That’s what it’s called… and that’s fine. It’s their gold mine and they can call it whatever they want.

The results aren’t headline-making in either direction, though – the best of them being hole HR22-018 with 147.8m @ 0.62g/t gold (Au) from surface (est. true width ~104m),  including 45.7m @ 1.06g/t Au from 44.2m.

It’s a lukewarm result that got a lukewarm reception from the market, with Rex on track to finish about 2.4% heavier by the end of the day, provided the pigs don’t eat all the gold.

On the topic of pigs (bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this…) Magnum Mining and Exploration’s (ASX:MGU) trading halt from yesterday was about news that it has entered into a binding share purchase agreement (Agreement) with Mr. Neil Goodman, CEO of Appalachian Iron, to buy his company.

The purchase is a strategic one, and there’s a bit of a thread to pull here, but the gist of it is this: Appalachian Iron is a party to a licence agreement with China’s Molong Petroleum Machinery Company – a company title so gloriously vague, it is a genuine thing of wonder.

That agreement gives Appalachian the right to enter a future formal process agreement to utilise all intellectual property, information and data relating to the HIsmelt iron ore process, which was developed by Rio Tinto in the early 1980s – as well as Molong’s technical services and key HIsmelt equipment.

Appalachian obtained those rights in order to use HIsmelt to produce Appalachian green pig iron in the United States – and, you see, we’re back to the pig stuff and I’m not clearly insane.

Anyway – it turns out that a little while ago, Magnum was all “we’re gonna use an Old Skool rotary kiln at our Buena Vista Magnetite Project”, but then an independent engineer, MinRizon Projects, came along and was like “My dudes, you should totally be using this HIsmelt gizmo instead”, and Magnum was like “no way…” and MinRizon was all like “Yes, way…” and that’s why Magnum’s gone and bought Appalachian Iron.

And it’s only going to cost them 30,000,000 performance shares in the capital of Magnum for Mr Neil Goodman (or his nominee) as consideration for 100% of the issued capital of Appalachian Iron.

 

TRADING HALTS

NIB Holdings (ASX:NHF) – NIB went into a halt this morning, and emerged from it as suddenly as it went in, on news that it’s trying to raise about $150 million, to buy pretty much whatever it wants, because that’s a lot of money.

Larvotto Resources (ASX:LRV) – Larvotto, fresh off the back of securing $3.4 million yesterday, is… doing a capital raise for some obscure reason. Sounds a bit greedy, if you ask me, but if that’s what’s gonna make them happy…

MAKO GOLD (ASX:MKG) – Mako is also launching a capital raise.

Botanix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:BOT) – This one’s a juicy one… Botanix is in a halt, ahead of results from a clinical trial, which should be out by the end of the week.

Australian Potash (ASX:APC) – Annnd APC is into a halt pending news of an acquisition, which is most likely going to be “loads and loads of jazz cigarettes” so that it can keep on making potash for many years to come.

 

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