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Good morning everyone, and welcome to 04 June, 2024 – an important day in the history of Western Australia.

That’s because it was on this day in 1629 that the Dutch East India ship Batavia came to grief on Morning Reef near Beacon Island, causing things to get completely out of hand in a shockingly short space of time.

It is estimated that just over 340 people were aboard the Batavia when it set sail from the Dutch port of Texel, part of a fleet of eight ships on 28 October. 1628.

That fleet was reduced to three ships – Batavia, Assendelft and Buren – by storms and other bad weather in the North Sea, and after rounding the Cape of Good Hope more bad weather struck, and Batavia found itself alone in the vastness of the ocean.

Undaunted, Commander Francisco Pelsaert – who was leading the expedition – called on Batavia’s skipper Ariaen Jacobsz to press on across the Indian Ocean – unaware that Jacobsz  had been planning a mutiny with the help of Pelsaert’s deputy, Jeronimus Cornelisz.

But that mutiny never got to occur, after strong winds coupled with poor navigation pushed Batavia to its doom on the reef, taking 100 souls with her as she sank. With 240 stranded people to care for, Pelsaert and Jacobsz took the ship’s longboat 3,000km north to the settlement that shared their doomed vessel’s name – Batavia.

It was a 72-day round trip, and when Pelsaert returned with supplies and a rescue ship, he found an unimaginable horror… Mutiny conspirator Cornelisz, whom Pelsaert had left in charge of the survivors, had gone barmy, and seized control.

Having gathered roughly half the survivors as loyal followers, Cornelisz had ordered a purge of all remaining survivors – and an estimated 125 men, women and children were murdered in a variety of gruesome ways.

Pelsaert rounded up Cornelisz and his supporters, taking the worst of the offenders to Seal Island to be hanged… but not before having their right hands cut off. But two men, the youngest of the conspirators, were for some reason spared the gallows.

Instead, Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de Bye were taken to the Australian mainland and marooned, inadvertently becoming the first European settlers on the continent for the rest of what I assume was their very brief lives.

Luckily for you, you won’t won’t have to stage a mutiny in order to get the best of the pre-market info you need to get the week started off right.

To help you this morning, Nadine McGrath has rounded up the winners and losers from across the ASX in May, Christian Edwards has been on the blower to investment manager James Whelan to discuss what’s got Whelan’s mighty brain cranking this week, and I’ve put together lots of fiddly little things below, so you can don’t need to go ferreting all over the internet for your ASX info this morning.

 

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: US$2,331.85 (+0.17%)

Silver: US$30.44 (+0.15%)

Nickel (3mth): US$19,516/t (-1.58%)

Copper (3mth): US$10,033/t (+1.21%)

Zinc: US$2,914.28/t (-3.27%)

Oil (WTI): US$77.11 (+0.21%)

Oil (Brent): US$81.12 (+0.16%)

Iron 62pc Fe: US$117.52/t (0.00%)

AUD/USD: 0.6655 (0.00%)

Bitcoin: US$69,181.60 (+2.13%)

 

WHAT GOT YOU TALKING

If you’re keen to keep losing your mind about the Aussie property market, here’s all the numbers you need to know to win every Boomer argument in the pub this week.

 

 

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:

Code Name Price % Change Volume Market Cap
APC Aust Potash Ltd 0.002 50% 138,000 $4,020,189
WEL Winchester Energy 0.003 50% 41,130 $2,040,844
IIQ Inoviq Ltd 0.665 43% 4,283,213 $42,788,696
GGE Grand Gulf Energy 0.007 40% 5,035,080 $10,476,235
ECT Env Clean Tech Ltd. 0.004 33% 740,655 $9,515,431
EFE Eastern Resources 0.008 33% 2,500,188 $7,451,679
JAV Javelin Minerals Ltd 0.002 33% 289,814 $3,264,346
RBR RBR Group Ltd 0.002 33% 2,000,000 $2,451,607
WML Woomera Mining Ltd 0.004 33% 1,397,483 $3,654,417
ION Iondrive Limited 0.013 30% 4,362,479 $4,862,853
KLI Killiresources 0.052 30% 1,562,294 $4,008,950
NYR Nyrada Inc. 0.074 30% 811,552 $10,226,296
AUH Austchina Holdings 0.003 25% 801,091 $4,200,767
PUA Peak Minerals Ltd 0.005 25% 80,000 $4,165,506
EMS Eastern Metals 0.041 24% 4,903,303 $3,261,266
EOF Ecofibre Limited 0.082 21% 159,860 $25,763,425
LML Lincoln Minerals 0.009 20% 4,129,362 $12,780,339
PRX Prodigy Gold NL 0.003 20% 241,036 $5,294,436
SI6 SI6 Metals Limited 0.003 20% 342,558 $5,922,149
TAS Tasman Resources Ltd 0.006 20% 3,113,888 $3,563,346
CMG Criticalmineralgrp 0.190 19% 153,599 $6,751,025
SGQ St George Min Ltd 0.026 18% 8,400,975 $21,747,890
KCC Kincora Copper 0.066 18% 1,435,297 $11,478,291
GAL Galileo Mining Ltd 0.285 16% 2,418,062 $48,418,107
CMO Cosmometalslimited 0.044 16% 325,421 $4,802,989
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Yesterday’s Small Cap Winners included:

Galileo Mining (ASX:GAL) was the best performing small cap on Monday morning, surging on news that the company has signed a farm-in and joint venture agreement with the excitingly-named ACN 654 242 690 Pty Ltd, which is a 100% owned subsidiary of Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) .Under the agreement, Galileo will initially sell off 30% of the lithium rights at its Norseman project to Minres for $7.5 million in cash, with Minres able to increase that to a 55% stake by sole funding an additional $15m of exploration over the next four years, and then up to 70% by sole funding expenditure through to a Decision to Mine.

Eastern Metals (ASX:EMS) performed well on Monday morning on news that the company has identified new zones of anomalous base metal mineralisation in the northern portion of its Browns Reef project in NSW’s southern Cobar Basin. The company says that mapping and pXRF traverses along the Woorara Faul – a regional-scale structure related to known mineralisation at the high-grade Pineview and Evergreen zones – have identified new anomalous zones north and south of Evergreen, which the company has named ‘Kelpie Hill’ and ‘Windmill Dam’ respectively.

Big news from health tech player Inoviq (ASX:IIQ), which said it has created specialised exosomes (EEVs) designed to target and destroy breast cancer cells in a lab setting.

In the study, IIQ inserted a cancer targeting protein, chimeric antigen receptor (or CAR), into immune cells, which  released the modified/engineered exosomes.

This protein acts like a homing device, guiding the exosomes to the breast cancer cells. Overall, the study found that these engineered exosomes were successful in finding and killing breast cancer cells in their experiments conducted in vitro. The modified exosomes were isolated and concentrated using INOVIQ’s proprietary EXO-ACE technology, which recovered more than 80% of exosomes with over 95% purity. In the tests, 75% of breast cancer cells treated with these exosomes experienced cell death within 72 hours.

Falcon Metals (ASX:FAL) continued its climb up the charts on Monday, still gaining on last week’s news of a high-grade mineral sands discovery over a ~1,200m x ~600m area at Falcon’s 100% owned Farrelly Prospect.

And… small greenfields explorer AustChina Holdings (ASX:AUH) is on site and ready to drill four lithium targets at the Chenene project in Tanzania.

 

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:

Code Name Price % Change Volume Market Cap
ME1 Melodiol Glb Health 0.002 100% 16,165,970 $823,137
MDX Mindax Limited 0.060 46% 35,689 $84,000,135
IS3 I Synergy Group Ltd 0.014 40% 44,000 $3,540,804
MGA Metalsgrovemining 0.081 35% 1,163,680 $5,394,630
AMD Arrow Minerals 0.004 33% 11,341,349 $30,418,095
HCD Hydrocarbon Dynamic 0.004 33% 209,942 $2,425,747
LSR Lodestar Minerals 0.002 33% 367,500 $3,035,096
NAE New Age Exploration 0.004 33% 7,842,796 $5,381,697
NRZ Neurizer Ltd 0.004 33% 25,508,431 $5,707,292
KGD Kula Gold Limited 0.013 30% 20,492,904 $4,864,619
FAL Falconmetalsltd 0.340 26% 3,107,105 $47,790,000
XPN Xpon Technologies 0.015 25% 272,910 $4,109,298
CVR Cavalierresources 0.200 25% 59,861 $5,092,627
SBW Shekel Brainweigh 0.050 25% 12,000 $8,431,430
IBG Ironbark Zinc Ltd 0.005 25% 1,823,638 $6,375,490
IVX Invion Ltd 0.005 25% 712,152 $25,698,129
VRC Volt Resources Ltd 0.005 25% 3,425,046 $16,634,713
TM1 Terra Metals Limited 0.053 23% 273,183 $12,718,484
SPA Spacetalk Ltd 0.022 22% 5,360,120 $8,478,385
ZMM Zimi Ltd 0.022 22% 129,309 $2,220,265
VTI Vision Tech Inc 0.170 21% 260,008 $7,705,105
1MC Morella Corporation 0.003 20% 1,582,417 $15,446,999
ATS Australis Oil & Gas 0.012 20% 3,292,163 $12,768,655
EDE Eden Inv Ltd 0.003 20% 3,039,436 $9,195,678
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TRADING HALTS

 

Ausgold (ASX:AUC) – pending an announcement to the market in relation to a capital raising.

Amaero International (ASX:3DA) – pending an announcement in relation to the completion of a significant contractual milestone.

Mindax (ASX:MDX) – pending release of an announcement in relation to a joint review of the Mt Forrest Iron Project with a Chinese state owned entity.

Generation Development Group (ASX:GDG) – pending an announcement in relation to an institutional placement and pro rata accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer.

De.mem (ASX:DEM) – pending an announcement in relation to an acquisition transaction and corresponding capital raising.

Immutep (ASX:IMM) – pending an announcement by Immutep in relation to a proposed fully underwritten equity raising.

Polymetals Resources (ASX:POL) – pending an announcement in relation to a capital raising.

Australian Unity (ASX: AYU) – pending an announcement of an equity raising to be undertaken by way of a pro rata non-renounceable entitlement offer and an institutional placement of MCIs.