Weekly ASX small cap wrap: What a difference one year can make

This time last year we were all hanging on for dear life as global markets fell off the proverbial cliff.

Investors were skittish and manic. Any wannabe virus fighting stock that mentioned ‘hand sanitiser’ was pumped into the stratosphere.

And ‘Sad Guys on Trading Floors’  — gallows humour for the recession — was suddenly relevant again.

Time flies, and this week has been nice and boring in comparison.

The ASX 200 index is now looking like it will nudge ~0.15% higher — that’s 2 weeks of gains in a row.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

ONEVIEW HEALTHCARE (ASX:ONE) +120%

Best performer was digital healthcare company Oneview, which scored a $1m investment and exposure deal from StocksDigital.

The cash is nice. But — more importantly — the deal should increase awareness of the company among the wider investing community.

StocksDigital aims to build a “high conviction, high performing” ASX small-cap investment portfolio and share their research with their readers who co-invest alongside them, via their investor focused websites.

The share subscription was priced at 6 cents per share — a 18.9 per cent discount to its traded price this week.

Oneview said the deal was timely as it is poised to launch its Cloud product service in Australia and the US.

ASTON MINERALS (ASX:ASO) +109%

Aston soared earlier this week after hitting visible gold in drilling at the newly acquired Edleston project in Canada.

+$10.8m had already been spent on drilling and geophysics by previous owners, who hit grades like 5.3m at 81.39g/t gold, 110m from surface, but could never put it all together.

Aston is hoping to find what they missed.

BROOKSIDE ENERGY (ASX:BRK) +71%

Markets are adjusting for the “biggest reopening trade” since World War 2 ended, pro investor James Whelan told Stockhead earlier this week.

Whelan pinpointed an ASX microcap play that looks set to benefit from one of the core trends in the great reopening — oil prices.

“If you don’t own Brookside Energy right now, then you should probably have a really good look at it,” he said.

“It’s a perfect representation of where I’m investing. Oil prices are going up and gas is going up, and I’m rotating into energy.

“The holdings that BRK has are phenomenal. That’s the stock that’s going to make people a lot of money over the next couple of months.”

CENTREX METALS (ASX:CXM) +63%

This humble fertiliser farmer has started mining its low cost Ardmore phosphate project in Queensland, amidst one of the worst fertiliser shortages one retired farmer/fertiliser trader has seen in his lifetime.

Initial work will produce 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes of ore from the Ardmore South Deposit “at a reasonable cost”, Centrex said late February.

“Interest has already been shown in purchasing some of this Ardmore production and it is anticipated that demand will increase as the product becomes available,” the company says.

The stock is up 157 per cent over the past month.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS