Top 10 at 11: ASX slides, small cap miners target gold and rare earths

Morning, and welcome to Stockhead’s Top 10 (at 11… ish), highlighting the movers and shakers on the ASX in early-doors trading.

With the market opening at 10am sharp eastern time, the data is taken at 10.15am in the east, once trading kicks off in earnest.

In brief, this is what the market has been up to this morning.

ASX wobbles lower

The ASX has fallen 0.25% or 22.5 points in the first hour of trade, sketching a jagged path south as demand-side buyers fail to stymie what appears to be a bout of profit taking and/or nerves before Jerome Powell’s possibly market-shaping speech on Saturday morning AEST.

The banks index and 7 of 11 sectors are in the red, with a little bit of resistance from materials, info tech and energy.

Earnings season is still turning, with some big names on today’s roster, so it’s tough to say which way the bourse will go over the trading day.

Oil rose 1% as Russia-Ukraine peace talks stalled and US demand picked up, hitting US$67.66 a barrel this morning.

Gold futures moved in the other direction, sliding 0.2% or US$6.90 to US$3,381.60 an ounce. Spot gold is trading at US$3337.66 an ounce.

SMALL CAP WINNERS

In the news…

Gladiator Resources (ASX:GLA) is making a foray into the heating US rare earths space with the help of Apex USA Resources LLC, a local company with extensive involvement in the US rare earths industry.

Apex will aid Gladiator in selecting and pegging tenements prospective for REEs in return for GLA options, netting 110 million at a strike of 1.2c each should a tenement be pegged and a further 90 million on confirmation rare earths are present on the tenure.

Asra Minerals (ASX:ASR) has drawn some promising conclusions from a recent round of drilling at the Leonora South gold project, despite a lack of continuity at depth at the Orion and Sapphire prospects.

While gold mineralisation didn’t extend continuously below 100m of depth as hoped, ASR instead hit an unexpected semi massive sulphide pyrrhotite zone displaying cobalt copper, titanium, vanadium and zinc.

And, at the emerging Eclipse prospect, drilling delivered high-grade gold despite shallow depths, grading up to 14m at 7.49 g/t gold from 12m – ASR expects the assays from the remaining 39 holes in early September.

SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.