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Good morning everyone, and welcome to 15 February, 2024 – notable on the historical calendar as the date on which, in the year 399BC that the city of Athens sentenced Socrates to death, on charges of impiety and for corrupting the minds of the youth of the city.

Without wanting to open a massive can of worms, there are several schools of thought as to whether the great philosopher was executed because he made the oligarchs who ruled Athens at the time mad, or whether he was a raging pederast – as was the way of the Ancient Greeks, and a few modern ones as well.

But either way, the fact is that he caused enough of a stink to get himself murdered by the city he loved for corrupting youthful minds, and possibly backsides, before he went.

In the hope that today’s events on the ASX are somewhat less of a pain in the arse than a lesson from Socrates, the Stockhead team has been hard at work to bring you the latest in what’s happening in and around the market.

Josh Chiat’s been lurking at the RIU Explorers conference to dig up the latest in uranium gossip, and he even had time to corner Alto Capital investment manager Tony Locantro for his take on what stocks are hot right now.

Plus the always-wise Eddy Sunarto explains what a Margin of Safety is for investors and why you need to be using one, and as always there’s words and numbers down below to keep you busy while you wait for your morning coffee to work its way through the plumbing, before you leave for the office.

 

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: US$1,992.26 (+0.01%)

Silver: US$22.37 (+1.35%)

Nickel (3mth): US$16,040/t (+0.75%)

Copper (3mth): US$8,260/t (+0.30%)

Oil (WTI): US$76.63 (-1.60%)

Oil (Brent): US$81.41 (-1.64%)

Iron 62pc Fe: US$129.10/t (+0.06%)

AUD/USD: 0.6494 (+0.57%)

Bitcoin: US$51,770 (+4.5%)

 

WHAT GOT YOU TALKING

With a tagline like “lessons on the ASX journey from dirt bag to 10 bag”, there’s nothing not to love about this wonderful tale from Christian Edwards.

 

 

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:

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Yesterday’s Small Cap Winners included:

Blue Star Helium (ASX:BNL) got off to a good start early in the day, after the company revealed results from initial testing and evaluation at Bolling #4 SESW well, which resulted in gas to surface flow of >4% helium under vacuum with flow up to 268.4 mscf/d. The company has engineers evaluating well production potential.

Rox Resources (ASX:RXL) had good news, revealing that it has recently completed geophysical Gradient Array Induced Polarisation (GAIP) surveys at its Mt Fisher and Mt Eureka gold projects in Western Australia, identifying numerous high-priority, walk-up drill targets in the process.

The new targets add to a previous result from its 100% owned Mt Fisher project, which the company reported as 9m @ 34.34g/t Au, with work continuing on both that project and the 51% (with an avenue for earn-in up to 75%) owned Mt Eureka site.

Bastion Minerals (ASX:BMO) was also making news on Wednesday morning, announcing that 53 samples from old mine workings have confirmed that the strategic 115km2 Gyttorp land holding in Southern Sweden is highly prospective for high-grade REE, with laboratory results to 6.8% (68,078 ppm) total REE + yttrium and elevated results throughout the property.

The company says that other high-grade Total REE+Y samples that exceeded 1.0% (10,000 ppm) include: 3.09%, 2.85%, 2.46%, 2.09%, 1.52%, 1.49%, 1.45%, 1.29% and 1.1%.

Hammer Metals (ASX:HMX) announced that its JV partner, Sumitomo Metal Mining Oceania, has reached a $6 million (60% interest) earn-in milestone and has elected to continue to fund the JV, with drilling of the Shadow South IOCG target scheduled to commence in early March.

As such, Hammer has elected to dilute its position in the MIEJV in accordance with the JV agreement, noting that it can elect to contribute to the Joint Venture in the future to maintain its interest at that point in time.

Kin Mining (ASX:KIN) surged more than 19% on no news, earning itself a speeding ticket from the ASX, while Sovereign Cloud Holdings (ASX:SOV) jumped around 24% in after-lunch trade, also without much in the way of news for the market.

 

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:

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TRADING HALTS

Kin Mining (ASX:KIN) – pending the release of a response to a price query dated 14 February 2024.