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

Good morning everyone, and welcome to 27 March, 2024 – an important day in the history of patent filing, because it was on this day in various years that some of the most important and influential patents were filed.

In 1790, the shoelace game was changed forever when the modern shoelace – with that little hard bit on the end, which is called an aglet – was patented in England by Harvey Kennedy.

In 1849, a fella called Joseph Couch patented steam-powered percussion rock drill, making my local council’s ongoing chore of digging up the street outside my house over and over again possible.

A scant six years later in 1855, a Canadian geologist with a penchant for setting stuff on fire – Abraham Genser – filed a patent for kerosene, paving the way for jet engines and hundreds of house fires.

Then, on this day in 1860, M L Byrn patented an object described as “a covered gimlet screw with a ‘T’ handle” – better known as a corkscrew – virtually scuttling the burgeoning cardboard wine cask industry overnight, setting their efforts to bring 4 litres of truly gruesome wine to a backyard party using only one hand back by close to a century.

Half a dozen years after that, American Andrew Rankin patented the humble urinal, after liberal use of Mr Byrn’s corkscrew led to the inadvertent invention of peeing standing up.

They’re not the only wonderfully inventive people in the world, of course – and we’re lucky to call a number of brilliantly creative thinkers and writers part of the Stockhead team.

They’ve put together a brilliant collection of stories for you to peruse across the site this morning. Stuff like Reuben talking to John Hathaway and Warwick Grigor about why no one’s buying gold stocks. Or Josh Chiat’s look at just how far this uranium bull run might go.

And – as always – there’s words and numbers down below for you to memorise now and then invent your own narrative as you do your due diligence, invest wisely and make your mates look like know-nothing fools.

You’re welcome.

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: US$2,172.71 (+0.02%)

Silver: US$24.60 (-0.28%)

Nickel (3mth): US$16,862.50/t (-1.67%)

Copper (3mth): US$8,743.35/t (+0.03%)

Oil (WTI): US$81.90 (-0.11%)

Oil (Brent): US$86.70 (+0.02%)

Iron 62pc Fe: US$110.67/t (+0.03%)

AUD/USD: 0.6542 (-0.02%)

Bitcoin: US$70,435.70 (+0.77%)

WHAT GOT YOU TALKING

If you’ve ever wondered what the dulcet tones of our very own Barry FitzGerald or C29 Metals’ CEO Shannon Green sound like, wonder no more – because here’s a wonderful interview by the former with the latter. Enjoy.

Stockhead’s ‘Garimpeiro’ columnist Barry FitzGerald is back in the studio for another instalment of The Explorers Podcast. In this episode Barry chats to Shannon Green, managing director at C29 Metals (ASX:C29). https://t.co/Ntantdt9do #ASX @C29Metals

— Stockhead (@StockheadAU) March 26, 2024

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
MPK	Many Peaks Minerals	21.50	194.52	4,384,877	$2,917,711
WML	Woomera Mining Ltd	0.60	50.00	2,236,720	$4,872,556
MSB	Mesoblast Limited	47.00	42.42	49,569,423	$376,434,878
SRR	Saramaresourcesltd	2.40	41.18	305,304	$1,363,725
JAV	Javelin Minerals Ltd	0.20	33.33	2,128,725	$3,264,346
MRD	Mount Ridley Mines	0.20	33.33	3,510,000	$11,677,324
BDX	Bcaldiagnostics	12.00	27.66	1,347,128	$23,715,703
ASV	Assetvisonco	1.90	26.67	9,207	$10,887,548
BNL	Blue Star Helium Ltd	0.75	25.00	3,382,878	$11,653,592
GTI	Gratifii	0.50	25.00	3,402,091	$5,476,891
PSL	Paterson Resources	2.00	25.00	651,347	$7,296,606
SCT	Scout Security Ltd	1.00	25.00	1,433	$1,859,419
EXT	Excite Technology	1.10	22.22	22,836,215	$11,963,176
TNY	Tinybeans Group Ltd	11.00	20.88	107,976	$7,679,248
88E	88 Energy Ltd	0.60	20.00	12,059,203	$125,620,313
CRB	Carbine Resources	0.60	20.00	1,100,000	$2,758,689
OXT	Orexploretechnologie	2.40	20.00	69,853	$3,908,313
RML	Resolution Minerals	0.30	20.00	133,333	$3,149,992
JPR	Jupiter Energy	2.50	19.05	489,000	$26,746,696
BIT	Biotron Limited	8.20	18.84	4,612,232	$62,257,010
CAT	Catapult Grp Int Ltd	153.00	16.79	1,003,357	$332,225,767
AHN	Athena Resources	0.35	16.67	5,117,689	$3,211,403
SI6	SI6 Metals Limited	0.35	16.67	1,000,113	$7,106,578
PFE	Panteraminerals	5.00	16.28	1,079,826	$11,200,729
ZMI	Zinc of Ireland NL	1.50	15.38	222,777	$2,770,876

Yesterday’s Small Cap Winners included:

The clear standout was Many Peaks Minerals (ASX:MPK), which surged ahead by +174% for the day.

Many Peaks has entered into a binding agreement with Turaco Gold (ASX:TCG) to acquire 89% of CDI Holdings (Guernsey) – a holding company for the Ivorian subsidiary party to a JV which has earned into a 65% stake in four Ivorian permits, and holds the right to earn-in to an 85% interest by sole funding any project within four mineral licences in Cote d’Ivoire through feasibility study.

Mesoblast (ASX:MSB) jumped 50% after announcing that US FDA has informed the company that following additional consideration the available clinical data from its Phase 3 study MSB-GVHD001 appears sufficient to support submission of the proposed Biologics License Application (BLA) for remestemcel-L for treatment of pediatric patients with steroid-refractory acute graft versus host disease (SR-aGVHD). Mesoblast now intends to file the resubmission during the next quarter, seeking to address all remaining product characterisation issues.

Sarama Resources (ASX:SRR) also moved up nicely earlier in the day, probably because West African gold is looking like hot property, for obvious reasons.

Cokal (ASX:CKA) managed to secure itself a 12-month revenue stream by chartering barges to “ensure continuous delivery” of its coal to market. That revenue stream is in effect, with the company announcing it had received payment from the loading of 7,500 tonnes of product coal on to barges at the Batu Tuhup Jetty. Said barges will transport 7,500 tonnes of high-grade thermal coal product to Sumbar Global (SGE), which has been sold under the existing offtake contract.

Trek Metals (ASX:TKM) rose on good on news regarding its Champagne Pool epithermal gold target within the Pincunah Project in the Pilbara region of WA. The news is, basically, drilling has been announced to commence in the coming weeks at the untested, high-potential target. The company says there is every indication that strong surface geochemical indicators are suggestive of a cap to an epithermal gold system, with the gold zone likely ‘intact’ sub-surface.

Titomic (ASX:TTT) was celebrating a noteworthy sale, after the Netherlands Army purchased 10 of the company’s D523 Cold Spray systems, with the sale worth more than 770,000 Euros.

In the larger end of town, specialty retailer Premier Investments (ASX:PMV) rose 4% after reporting statutory first half NPAT of $177.2 million. The company also declared a record interim fully franked ordinary dividend of 63 cps, up 16.7% on the pcp.

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
INP	Incentiapay Ltd	0.40	-33.33	800,000	7,463,580
VPR	Volt Power Group	0.10	-33.33	4,131	16,074,312
29M	29Metalslimited	40.00	-25.93	16,618,743	378,917,588
AUK	Aumake Limited	0.30	-25.00	1,758,733	7,657,627
CCO	The Calmer Co Int	0.30	-25.00	13,045,785	4,730,787
CNJ	Conico Ltd	0.15	-25.00	15,029,791	3,140,190
MTL	Mantle Minerals Ltd	0.15	-25.00	21,799,999	12,394,892
HOR	Horseshoe Metals Ltd	0.70	-22.22	1,943,905	5,818,308
RNE	Renu Energy Ltd	0.70	-22.22	8,220,593	6,074,706
COD	Coda Minerals Ltd	11.50	-20.69	682,814	20,643,849
HLX	Helix Resources	0.40	-20.00	250,000	11,615,729
ROG	Red Sky Energy.	0.40	-20.00	6,150,000	27,111,136
BEZ	Besragoldinc	10.50	-19.23	7,843,693	54,353,118
LSA	Lachlan Star Ltd	3.10	-18.42	212,160	7,887,781
MXR	Maximus Resources	2.50	-16.67	239,588	9,628,373
CHK	Cohiba Min Ltd	0.25	-16.67	52,714	10,764,733
ICG	Inca Minerals Ltd	0.50	-16.67	271,429	4,792,627
LNR	Lanthanein Resources	0.25	-16.67	383,003	5,864,727
MHC	Manhattan Corp Ltd	0.25	-16.67	100,000	8,810,939
MOM	Moab Minerals Ltd	0.50	-16.67	1,996,282	4,271,781
RR1	Reach Resources Ltd	0.25	-16.67	174,096	9,836,169
YAR	Yari Minerals Ltd	0.50	-16.67	20,466	2,894,147
SOV	Sovereign Cloud Hldg	3.60	-16.28	706,723	14,594,229
OKJ	Oakajee Corp Ltd	1.60	-15.79	45,000	1,737,475
ICU	Investor Centre Ltd	2.70	-15.63	3,207	9,702,337