Rise and Shine: Everything you need to know before the ASX opens

On Stockhead today,

But first, the day ahead.

TRADING HALTS

The following stocks went into trading halts Wednesday and are expected out in the coming days: 

WAM Leaders (ASX:WLE) – Placement to wholesale and sophisticated investors, and a capital raise for the rest of us plebs.

Battery Minerals (ASX:BAT) – Fund raising, possibly to convert the Batmobile from jet-powered to a more efficient EV setup.

Tivan (ASX:TVN) – Project facilitation agreement. I do not know what that means.

BikeExchange (ASX:BEX) – Capital raising.

Fiji Kava (ASX:FIJ) – Fiji Kava needs to issue a clarification to news of the RooLife distribution deal, with details due on Friday morning.

Avira Resources (ASX:AVW) – It looks like the ASX has issued a “please explain” over AVW’s announcement from earlier in the day. See above for the details.

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: $US2,022.56 (+0.68%)

Silver: $US25.32 (-0.55%)

Nickel (3mth): $US23,199/t (-2.29%)

Copper (3mth): $US9001.00/t (-0.02%)

Oil (WTI): $US82.30 (+2.25.%)

Oil (Brent): $US85.59 (+1.65%)

Iron 62pc Fe: $US120.00/t (+0.42%)

AUD/USD: 0.6653 (+0.25%)

Bitcoin: $US30,263 (+2.89%)

WHAT GOT YOU TALKING?

China: Making rare earths rarer…

• China is reportedly considering banning exports of #RareEarths magnet production and process/refining tech
• In 2010 a diplomatic row with Japan saw Beijing throttle REE exports; prices went parabolic for a short period #ASX #criticalminerals

https://t.co/oUb9tZd5H0

— Stockhead (@StockheadAU) April 11, 2023

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Also, be sure to check in preopen each day for ‘Market highlights and 5 ASX small caps to watch’, and 10.30am for our daily ‘10 at 10’ column — a live summary of winners & losers at the opening bell.

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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Codrus Minerals (ASX:CDR), stacked on a 39.5% climb on news that it’s started up the drills at its high-grade Karloning Rare Earth project.

Rock/soil sampling returned very high grades up to 2.85% dysprosium and 6.41% niobium, and the drilling the company kicked off is to find out just how large the target is.

Besra Gold (ASX:BEZ), which ended the day up 37.8% on no fresh news, but there’s little doubt that it’s flavour of the month for investors.

BEZ is up around 450% since revealing that it’s entered into a non-binding offtake and funding deal with bullion dealer and major shareholder Quantum Metal Recovery, bouncing higher again after Quantum sent through the first $2 million payment to Besra.

To sweeten the pot for investors even further, by the end of this month there’s another $3 million heading Besra’s way.

Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE) has drilled into high grade intercepts of up to 4839ppm TREO at its newly-discovered Western Zone at Cowalinya, where the company says 159 mineralised intercepts have been drilled, covering approximately 13km2.

The results confirm the potential to host a material increase in rare earths resources , looking to upgrade its current Inferred Resource of 28Mt @ 625ppm TREO, once assays from another 36 holes are in.

At lunchtime, AR3 was up 35%, but eased to a 20.6% gain for the day.

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the least best performing ASX small cap stocks:

Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort: