Good morning everyone, and welcome to 17 January, 2024 – a date on the calendar that has historically been pretty good for women in sport, but otherwise a bit of a dud for women in other walks of life.

Today’s recognised as the day women’s golfing legend Patty Berg managed a three-stroke win over Dorothy Kirby to bring home the inaugural LPGA Titleholders Championship Women’s Golf, at the almighty Augusta golf course in 1937.

And it was on this day in 1953 that American tennis sensation Maureen Connolly won the first leg of her eventual Grand Slam, taking Australian Championships Women’s Tennis final against fellow Julia Sampson, 6-3, 6-2.

But further back in history, things weren’t that great. It was on this day in 1893 that the ruling monarch of Hawaii, Queen Liliuokalani, was oustered by an American-led coup – an act that led to the establishment of the Republic of Hawaii, and its eventual slow descent into American statehood.

And it was clearly a very bad day for the womenfolk of the Polish town of Kalisk, where the locals – enraged over a poor turnip crop – dragged nine old ladies to the middle of town and set them on fire, in the belief they were witches.

Poland, it turns out, had a bit of thing for burning people accused of witchcraft, with one source that I briefly skimmed this morning claiming that a total of 49 women and 19 men were condemned for witchcraft in Poland, during the 1600s up to the mid 1700s.

Setting people on fire when crops failed kind of went out of style after that, but unexplained illnesses among the noblefolk remained a cause of much consternation among the witchier-looking folks of Poland for quite some time.

Thankfully, these days we have stuff like Science to believe in, leaving the witch-burners to go after Swedish teenagers called Greta instead… metaphorically speaking, of course.

And on that note, it’s probably best we move on to today’s real task at hand – giving you all the info you need to magic up some gains from a wobbly-old ASX this week.

To help you get started, we’ve got Rob Badman’s look at the IPOs of 2023, Nadine McGrath’s look at the experts for 2024 and I wrote a thing, too. But you probably won’t even read it.

Plus, down below, there’s all the data and digits and letters and numbers and other squiggles and doo-dads that make up the bare bones of what the market’s gonna look like as the day progresses.

 

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: US$2,049.25 (-0.27%)

Silver: US$23.13 (-0.39%)

Nickel (3mth): US$15,961.00/t (-0.69%)

Copper (3mth): US$8,248.15/t (-0.19%)

Oil (WTI): US$72.56 (-0.32%)

Oil (Brent): US$78.29 (-0.45%)

Iron 62pc Fe: US$137.22/t (-1.19%)

AUD/USD: 0.6617 (-0.49%)

Bitcoin: US$42,841.30 (+0.82%)

 

WHAT GOT YOU TALKING

A banger of an instalment from Resources mega-brain Reuben Adams, with the added bonus that his copy of Photoshop tried to dob him in to the FBI for attempting to print illegal copies of money on his laptop. What a time to be alive…

 

 

YESTERDAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

 

Yesterday’s Small Cap Winners included:

The morning’s good going belonged to Koonenberry Gold (ASX:KNB), which dropped an announcement this morning that final approvals have been received for the maiden drilling program at its Atlantis Au-Cu Prospect, and “as soon as weather conditions permit” they’ll get the drills spinning to conduct first pass Air Core drilling at the site.

“The Atlantis outcropping copper-gold mineralisation, copper-gold soil anomaly, geophysical targets, structural and geological setting make Atlantis a compelling target,” KNB MD Dan Power said.

“Whilst this prospect has been known about for some years, Koonenberry Gold has advanced it to drill ready status and will be the first ever exploration company to conduct drill testing.” Presumably he means at that particular site, but you get the idea.

KNB also has assay results incoming from its Bellagio project, which the company says are “anticipated soon”.

Later in the day, White Cliff Minerals (ASX:WCN) moved towards the top of the ladder again, following on from yesterday’s news that it’s all set to acquire a historical uranium project in the Northwest Territories of Canada called Radium Point.

The investor presentation it delivered this morning re-stating that news and giving a brief update on how the company’s travelling was just the shot in the arm it needed to resume its shuffling towards a nicely fattened purse.

BMG Resources (ASX:BMG) dropped a bit of a bombshell in the morning, fuelling a major surge in volume and pushing its price up more than 23% with news that long-time MD Bruce McCracken has resigned from BMG and all of its subsidiaries.

With McCracken gone, non-executive director John Prineas assumes the role of non-executive chairman, while non-executive chairman Greg Hancock transfers to the role of independent non-executive director.

Prineas steps into the role with a host of other responsibilities on his plate as well – he’s currently BMG’s largest shareholder (holding 9.8%), and is also the founder and executive chairman of St George Mining (ASX:SGQ) and founder and a non-executive director of American West Metals (ASX:AW1).

As it stands with BMG, Prineas is set to assume day-to-day responsibilities for BMG matters, until a new CEO or MD is appointed to the role.

There were a bunch of Small Caps moving around for reasons probably known only to them – that included Firebird Metals (ASX:FRB), clawing back some of the ground that it lost late last week, and Fatfish Group (ASX:FFG) which was lurching around like it often does, so no huge surprise there, really.

Chilwa Minerals (ASX:CHW), PVW Resources (ASX:PVW) and Metal Hawk (ASX:MHK) were also heading north in the morning, without any announcements providing information about why.

And Aerometrex (ASX:AMX) delivered a quarterly before lunch, bearing upbeat news for investors – the company expects to deliver a record first half (1H) revenue outcome, driven by “strong ongoing performance of the LiDAR and MetroMap product lines”.

AMX reckons it’s likely to post a group revenue in the $11.8-$12.2 million range, which is a tidy climb from the previous years’ $10 million high water mark.

 

YESTERDAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Wordpress Table Plugin

 

TRADING HALTS

Rex Minerals (ASX:RXM) – pending an announcement by the company in relation to a proposed capital raising.

MetalsTech (ASX:MTC) – pending *deep breath* “detailed submissions (specifically ASX Listing Rules Chapter 11 – ‘Significant Transactions’) [to be] made to the ASX in relation to the potential transaction with Trans Metal Fund LP for the 100% acquisition of the high-tonnage, high-value underground-only Gold-Silver mining operation at the 100%-owned Sturec Gold Mine in Slovakia.

PhosCo (ASX: PHO) – pending an announcement by the company to the market regarding a capital raising.

 

 

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