Good morning everyone, and welcome to Wednesday, 15 November.

Aussie shares are poised to jump higher at Wednesday’s open on the back of a soft US CPI overnight . At 8am AEDT, the ASX 200 index futures was pointing up by +1.3%.  

On Stockhead today…

Despite increased internet usage and tremendous growth, more than 350 million Indians are still either unbanked or underbanked. Eddy Sunarto spoke to ASX fintech Findi’s non-executive chairman, Nicholas Smedley, to see how the company is working to grab this opportunity.

Slow progress of acceptance in legal and medical circles globally has seen ASX cannabis stocks face volatility. Nadine McGrath spoke to MGC Pharma’s managing director and CEO Roby Zomer, who said MXC has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, distancing itself from the classification of a cannabis company.

But first..

 

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: US$1,963.09 (+0.88%)

Silver: US$23.08 (+3.49%)

Nickel (3mth): US$17,398/t (+0.82%)

Copper (3mth): US$8,167/t (+1.64%)

Oil (WTI): US$78.25 (0.00%)

Oil (Brent): US$82.46 (-0.07%)

Iron 62pc Fe: US$128.78/t (+0.34%)

AUD/USD: 0.6512 (+2.00%)

Bitcoin: US$35,587 (-3.00%)

 

WHAT GOT YOU TALKING

Already credited with driving Spartan Resources’ (ASX:SPR) transformation, the high-grade Never Never deposit looks poised to deliver the next phase of growth after drilling returned a monstrous 1,093g/t intercept and more visible gold.

Altech Batteries (ASX:ATC) has increased the Silumina project DFS output eightfold from 15 GWh to 120 GWh to produce 8,000tpa of alumina-coated metallurgical silicon for the electric vehicle market. It’s enough to  outfit 400 Victorian big batteries.

And this…

 

YESTERDAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

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Yesterday’s Small Caps highlights:

MetalsTech (ASX:MTC) has made short work of Tuesday, ahead by about 125% when we last looked at about 3pm.

MTC yesterday shared some fine, fine results of a Scoping Study the team have done at its 100%-owned Sturec Gold Mine in central Slovakia.

“The Study confirms Sturec Gold Mine can support a Base Case scenario with an underground-only mining operation delivering gold and silver concentrate production of ~1.134Moz AuEq production over an initial mine life of 9 years at 2.3Mtpa plant production capacity.”

The digger says, based on a forecast gold price of US$1,850/oz (Consensus LT Forecast), the Sturec Gold Mine ‘exhibits an operating margin of >200%.’

In another cracking update, Cooper Metals (ASX:CPM)  said it had some significant assay results in hand from its Brumby Ridge and Raven Cu-Au Prospects at the Mt Isa East Cu-Au Project.

Initial RC drill hole 23MERC024 intercepted 50m at 1.32% Cu from 80m including 2m @ 6.1% Cu & 0.23g/t Au at the Brumby Ridge Cu-Au Prospect, which is the best assayed drill intercept at the Mt Isa East Cu-Au Project to date.

Also making progress yesterday, Kingfisher Mining (ASX:KFM), after lobbing an update from its ongoing exploration at Mick Well within the highly prospective Gascoyne Province.

KFM executice director and CEO James Farrell says they’re seeing some significant additional carbonatites and REE mineralisation.

“The latest discoveries confirm Mick Well is a very large and exciting REE system that extends over an area of more than 7km by 4km.

 

YESTERDAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

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TRADING HALTS

MaxiTrans (ASX:MXI) – pending an announcement of a significant acquisition transaction by the Company and an associated capital raising.