Good morning everyone, and welcome to Friday, 22 September – a date that holds a special place in the hearts and minds of everyone who was alive (or conscious enough, at least) to have been a television viewer at the turn of the century.

Because on this day in 1999, two TV shows made their United States debut – one of them an amazing game-changer that caused a seismic shift in the way television writers and showrunners treated their audience through some of the greatest scriptwriting of all time.

The other also caused a massive lurch, but in entirely the wrong direction, paving the way for the seemingly unending horrors of programs like The Big Bang Theory, which I believe is (quite deservedly) quite a long way through the process of being classified by the United Nations as a war crime.

The first was The West Wing – Aaron Sorkin’s masterpiece of American political theatre.

The second was Friends – the televisual equivalent of learning to empty your mind for meditation by drilling holes in it let all the goo dribble out.

I bring this up because it’s a cheerfully allegorical way of saying that both good things and bad things can happen on any given day – and, had the human race been armed with enough information about Friends in advance, there’s a solid chance that we may have been able to avoid it altogether.

Stretching this heavily thrashed metaphor even further, the Stockhead team has been hard at work on a swag of solid info to get you in the know about the day ahead and the market surrounds it, so that – with a bit of luck – your day traversing the bourse won’t end up with the ASX equivalent of you and your mates face down in a fountain outside an apartment building in New York.

Eddy Sunarto’s put together a typically Eddy-comprehensive look at all the best weed the ASX has to offer this fortnight, and Jess Cummins has hunted down the real reason why several lithium players fought tooth and nail to get boots on the ground in the black hills of South Dakota.

It goes something along the lines of “entire walls of pure spodumene”.

And, as I do most mornings, have got a bunch of words and numbers… a little ‘cheat sheet’, if you will to get you heading in the right direction before the doors fly open at 10:00am.

 

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: US$1,920 (-0.50%)

Silver: US$23.40(+0.68%)

Nickel (3mth): US$19,165/t (-2.18%)

Copper (3mth): US$8,225/t (-1.44%)

Oil (WTI): US$89.54 (-0.13%)

Oil (Brent): US$93.00 (-0.56%)

Iron 62pc Fe: US$121.69/t (-0.11%)

AUD/USD: 0.6417 (-0.52%)

Bitcoin: US$26,588 (-1.97%)

 

WHAT GOT YOU TALKING

Nadine McGrath’s deep dive into what’s got the cutting edge cancer stocks making moves is still the talk of the town this morning, and totally worth a read if you haven’t already done so.

 

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 Caps highlights were:

There’s was some movement at the top of the Small Caps list yesterday, leaving the slightly mysterious Pearl Gull Iron (ASX:PLG) on top of the ladder on +30.7%.

I don’t think anyone was expecting that today.

The company rose (apparently) on the back of its annual report, which landed after hours yesterday, showing that not much has changed in the past 12 months: PGL still has an Inferred Mineral Resource estimate of 24.5Mt at 34.3% Fe, but it still has to find an economic way of getting it off the ultra-remote Cockatoo Island.

The company says it’s been looking into a low-cost barge, but as yet nothing is set in stone.

PainChek (ASX:PCK) came out of nowhere to post a 30% gain on no news, and that’s despite being handed a speeding ticket by the ASX for a similarly curious price rise yesterday.

Painchek has told the ASX that it has no explanation for the sudden interest in the company from investors, but says that maybe “it is possible that the market may be reacting to the recent issue of shares as part of the placement that was announced on 14 September 2023”.

Rounding out the Top 3 was current favourite child OzAurum Resources (ASX:OZM), up 26% to take its run for the past week to +353.12%, with the company’s annual report landing at 4:17pm (after the markets closed), so I’ll endeavour to bring the contents of that to your attention today.

 

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

Armada Metals (ASX:AMM) – Capital raising.

Agrimin (ASX:AMN) – Capital raising.

Advanced Health Intelligence (ASX:AHI) – Announcement in relation to a letter of intent.

Bentley Capital (ASX:BEL) – Market announcement in relation to the company’s activities.

 

Read MoreCopperGoldLithiumNickelTech

Featured Companies

You might be interested in