Weekly Small Cap and IPO Wrap: Local market performs precisely as well as Adani most certainly didn’t

• Lode Resources has topped the table with an astounding +175% performance this week
• Genetic Technologies goes large on news of a new diagnostic for breast and ovarian cancer
• Adani is mid-collapse and hoping the weekend could be the circuit breaker it desperately needs

It’s the end of the week, and what a week it’s been for several of our beloved Small Caps, which have been part of a bumpy old journey Aussie markets in general.

Normally, around this time, we’d gather around to share tales of excitement around IPOs and welcome all the newcomers to the cavalcade of whimsy that is the ASX.

But there are none this week, so let’s just crunch some other numbers and get outta here.

Market movements

Kicked off the week limping like a beaten favourite, but went on to end the week up 0.86% – not bad for an index that was looking like it was out on its feet several times throughout the fight.

Globally, it was all pretty choppy as well – in the US, the Dow is up 0.39% so far this week, well behind the S&P on 3.23% and the Nasdaq’s bumper 5.99% climb… but there’s still their Friday to come, so the week will definitely round out a little different than that.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei is on track to finish up around 0.4% for the week, however the Hang Seng has slumped by 4.4% and Shanghai’s tracking toward a 1.8% dip since Monday.

In the news this week

The news this week was dominated by the ego-bruising slump in fortune for Guatam Adani, the man behind the massive Indian conglomerate that was accused by short-seller Hindenberg of all manner of chicanery and skullduggery.

It looked like Adani would be able to stand its ground for a couple of days, but in the end the fallout simply proved too much – Guatam Adani’s personal fortune shrank to a measly US$75 billion, while the company’s massive $US2.5 billion cap raise was jettisoned as a combo of seven publicly listed Adani companies have been publicly pantsed to the tune of $US86 billion.

That blood-letting continued throughout the day today – a further US$35 billion has been wiped off the company’s value as investors clamber over the top of each other to get outta Dodge before the whole thing collapses.

The rest of the week’s news was all about inflation, recession and what the hell all the Central Banks are going to do about it… all while the IMF super-helpfully played Chicken Little about how we’re all doomed and the global economy is collapsing and it’s time to secure you and your family an industrial skip to cower in when the whole thing goes a bit Mad Max.

The central banks that did have big decisions to reveal moved in pretty much precisely the manner we all expected them to, by hiking interest rates and making smoochy-lovey-dovey talk about how the worst of it’s probably over… but your mortgage payments are going up, just to be sure.

Rates in the US went up 25 basis points, while both the UK and Europe went hard with a 50 basis point rise.

Australia’s very own Reserve Bank is set to meet on Tuesday, and once the boffins are done with their gold plated lobster lunch, they’re gonna tell us that rates here are up 25 basis points as well.

Anything other than that move would be an enormous shock, and Australia simply wouldn’t have enough pearls to go clutching if the RBA doesn’t move like we’re expecting it to.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS:

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for Jan 30 – Feb 3 

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Lode Resources (ASX:LDR) was the biggest winner this week, surging +179% off the back of an outstanding silver drill hit – 116.1m at 1003g/t silver equivalent from 90m, including 3.1m at 3325g/t silver from 201m – at the historic Webbs Consol project in NSW.

That’s not true width but still very thick, very high grade, and not too deep (three basic criteria punters should look at when evaluating drill results).

This hit from the so-called Tangoa West lode – one of six at the project — represents the highest endowment of all drill intercepts received to date, the company says.

It also doubles Tangoa West mineralisation to a depth of 200m vertically “and the lode width appears to increase with depth”.

“The exceptionally rich WCS045 drill intercept demonstrates strong vertical continuity of the Tangoa West Lode mineralisation and rapidly increasing mineral endowment with depth,” MD Ted Leschke said.

“This has depth potential implications for all six lodes discovered to date as well as the overall prospectivity and potential scale of Webbs Consol silver project.”

Second cab off the rank was Genetic Technologies (ASX:GTG) who jumped +133% after announcing an imminent launch of the world’s first comprehensive risk test for breast and ovarian cancer today.

It’s a pretty big deal, considering there are more than 2.26 million cases of breast cancer and 313,000 cases of ovarian cancer diagnosed annually around the world.

The Risk Assessment Test will be able to evaluate a woman’s risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer either from a hereditary genetic mutation, or from the far more common familial or sporadic cancer – all from a single saliva sample and a questionnaire.

GTG believes the new platform could advance the goal of providing population-based genetic screening for breast and ovarian cancer where up to 85% of cancers diagnosed do not have hereditary or family history.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks:

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