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

Good morning everyone, and welcome to 19 February, 2024 – a notable day in the annals of public health, as it was on this day in 1910 that someone decided that a young lady, who was carrying a highly contagious infection, should be allowed to leave detention – sparking further deadly outbreaks of typhoid in the United States.

She was, of course, Mary Mallon, but you probably know her better by her subsequent nickname, Typhoid Mary. A poorly-educated Irish immigrant, Mary was the first person in the United States to be identified as an “asymptomatic carrier” of typhoid.

Everywhere she went, she spread typhoid – a life-threatening infection caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi – which, as it turns out, a small portion of the population is effectively immune to.

People like Mary can carry it, and spread it around – which Mary did quite efficiently, to the point where she was forcibly detained in 1907 until 1910, when she was released.

Unable to accept or comprehend that she was carrying the disease, Mary would often change her name and change jobs to avoid being detained again, and for 5 more years she moved from household to household, infecting people along the way.

Authorities eventually managed to lock her up again in 1915, and she was kept in mandatory detention until 1938, until she died of pneumonia – becoming, unwittingly, the poster child for a generation of anti-mask Typhoid Mary-style “activists” who would, in a similar fashion, refuse to take basic precautions to stop the spread of Covid, often dying just to prove their point that wearing a mask was for idiots.

On a healthier note, we’ve got a bunch of wonderful work by the Stockhead team for you today, including Eddy Sunarto’s Hot Money Monday, Guy on Rocks and Christian Edwards’ take on what’s looming for the ASX this week.

And, as always there’s words and numbers down below to help you sound like you know what you’re doing when the market opens later on this morning.

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: US$2,013.43 (-0.00%)

Silver: US$23.41 (-0.00%)

Nickel (3mth): US$16,084.00/t (-0.95%)

Copper (3mth): US$8,321.15/t (+2.07%)

Oil (WTI): US$79.38 (+1.72%)

Oil (Brent): US$83.58 (+0.88%)

Iron 62pc Fe: US$1229.29/t (+0.09%)

AUD/USD: 0.6532 (+0.21%)

Bitcoin: US$51,925.70 (+0.55%)

WHAT GOT YOU TALKING

Can Canberra’s superheroes swoop in to save the Aussie nickel industry? Josh Chiat’s unpacked a rapidly evolving issue facing a critical mineral.

Canberra has flown in its first step to save the Aussie #nickel sector, placing the metal on the #criticalminerals list. https://t.co/Y1Mp4kCWnh

— Stockhead (@StockheadAU) February 16, 2024

FRIDAY’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	Company	Price	%	Volume	MARKET CAP
JAV	Javelin Minerals Ltd	0.002	100%	1,715,977	$1,633,729
RBR	RBR Group Ltd	0.003	50%	7,977,562	$3,236,809
YPB	YPB Group Ltd	0.003	50%	333,333	$1,580,923
R8R	Regener8Resourcesnl	0.18	44%	54,928	$3,207,031
WAG	Theaustralianwealth	0.35	40%	399,234	$18,591,250
ADS	Adslot Ltd.	0.002	33%	7,086,018	$4,836,743
NET	Netlinkz Limited	0.004	33%	500,000	$11,635,345
RML	Resolution Minerals	0.004	33%	150,000	$3,779,990
LCL	LCL Resources Ltd	0.013	30%	2,973,988	$9,552,255
ATH	Alterity Therap Ltd	0.005	25%	207,512	$17,531,019
KNM	Kneomedia Limited	0.0025	25%	367,747	$3,066,543
TAS	Tasman Resources Ltd	0.005	25%	113,005	$2,850,677
TOY	Toys R Us	0.01	25%	523,497	$7,859,708
NVX	Novonix Limited	0.86	23%	9,613,063	$342,206,054
EAX	Energy Action Ltd	0.225	22%	14,152	$5,571,016
ARR	American Rare Earths	0.37	21%	10,763,041	$136,159,106
BRN	Brainchip Ltd	0.345	21%	35,640,368	$514,657,185
RLG	Roolife Group Ltd	0.006	20%	863,087	$3,612,791
TRI	Trivarx Ltd	0.025	19%	423,147	$7,103,852
WR1	Winsome Resources	0.76	18%	2,698,802	$123,056,358
BMM	Balkanminingandmin	0.08	18%	430,156	$4,830,755
SP3	Specturltd	0.02	18%	660,290	$3,942,655
LPM	Lithium Plus	0.2	18%	63,818	$14,617,994
CCR	Credit Clear	0.235	18%	569,740	$83,471,173
ATC	Altech Batt Ltd	0.088	17%	15,523,002	$123,999,442

Friday’s Small Cap Winners included:

The Australian Wealth Advisors Group (ASX:WAG) made its debut this morning, and was leading a clumsy rush up the small cap ladder through the afternoon session, up close to 50% from its $0.25 IPO price that brought in $5 million.

The company, which refers to itself as AWAG, was “founded in Melbourne in September 2021 by a group of experienced financial market professionals as a holding company”, and has a stated mission to “acquire and build upon sound, profitable and complementary Australian financial services businesses.”

Adslot (ASX:ADS) was up on news of the launch of a new wholly-owned subsidiary called Br1dge, a New York based tech company “established to capitalise on the significant opportunities emerging with the imminent deprecation of 3rd party cookies”.

Third party cookies are the privacy-invading snippets of code that websites leave on your computer so advertisers can continue beaming you ads for monster-sized sex toys long after you’re done with that part of your browsing for the evening and scuttled back to Reddit in shame.

Big tech is phasing out the use of those cookies – most browsers won’t accept them by the end of the year – but by the looks of things, Adslot (via Br1dge) has found a workaround that will keep the targeted ads rolling in, so… hooray?

Olympio Metals (ASX:OLY) saw a bit of a rush in the morning, after the company advised the market that it’s current diamond drilling programme at the Cadillac Project is “well advanced and ahead of schedule”, with 22 holes completed to date on four separate pegmatite targets.

Mighty Kingdom (ASX:MKL) climbed higher after informing the market after hours on Thursday of its intention to buy back all MKL shares held by Gamestar Studios – all 59,657,143 of them – for the princely sum of $1.

MKL said last month a “definitive proposal” – ie: restructuring, cap raising and board appointments was expected to be put to another EGM no later than February 28.

FRIDAY’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	Company	Price	%	Volume	MARKET CAP
PRX	Prodigy Gold NL	0.005	-38%	10,801,156	$14,008,863
BP8	Bph Global Ltd	0.001	-33%	928,307	$2,931,174
MTL	Mantle Minerals Ltd	0.002	-33%	55,555	$18,592,338
JCS	Jcurve Solutions	0.026	-28%	313,559	$11,820,364
NVQ	Noviqtech Limited	0.003	-25%	315,960	$5,237,781
AUK	Aumake Limited	0.004	-20%	11,800	$9,572,034
GMN	Gold Mountain Ltd	0.004	-20%	5,170,000	$11,389,393
PUR	Pursuit Minerals	0.004	-20%	767,373	$14,719,857
RR1	Reach Resources Ltd	0.002	-20%	2,432,539	$8,025,743
NEU	Neuren Pharmaceut.	18.845	-18%	2,130,108	$2,935,317,832
WWG	Wisewaygroupltd	0.05	-17%	13,530	$10,037,632
AMM	Armada Metals	0.02	-17%	273,810	$4,992,000
PUA	Peak Minerals Ltd	0.0025	-17%	849,475	$3,124,130
PHL	Propell Holdings Ltd	0.011	-15%	956,863	$2,669,622
SHO	Sportshero Ltd	0.011	-15%	263,535	$8,031,827
RSH	Respiri Limited	0.023	-15%	124,844	$28,616,461
FRB	Firebird Metals	0.12	-14%	247,091	$19,930,596
IS3	I Synergy Group Ltd	0.006	-14%	400,143	$2,128,563
RGS	Regeneus Ltd	0.006	-14%	125,000	$2,145,058
8CO	8Common Limited	0.043	-14%	165,704	$11,204,745
CBY	Canterbury Resources	0.026	-13%	72,659	$5,152,227
DGR	DGR Global Ltd	0.013	-13%	234,615	$15,655,402
ZMI	Zinc of Ireland NL	0.013	-13%	20,000	$3,197,164
RKT	Rocketdna Ltd.	0.007	-13%	121,501	$5,248,919

TRADING HALTS

Pinnacle Investment (ASX:PNI) – pending an announcement in relation to a proposed acquisition.

Symbio Holdings (ASX:SYM) – pending the outcome of today’s court hearing, at which Symbio will seek orders of the Federal Court of Australia approving Aussie Broadband‘s 100% acquisition of Symbio.

Toys R Us (ASX:TOY) – pending release of an announcement by TOY in connection with a private placement.