Weekly ASX small cap wrap: Who’s bagging the small cap gains this week?

It has come full circle. While we in Australia have been living without single use plastic bags for some time now, the San Francisco Bay Area – one of the most liberal areas in the US (and we don’t mean in the Liberal Party sense) – has moved to ban the use of reusable grocery bags.

That’s right, six Bay Area counties have called for reusable bags to be banned as part of their rewrite of an order requiring millions of residents to shelter at home to stop the spread of COVID-19 in California.

While it is not entirely clear how the esteemed law makers are proposing that shoppers take home their groceries, some have proposed that the measures are too extreme and that they should be tweaked to allow customers to bring their bags but for grocery employees to not fill them.

The great bag debate is ongoing, but that the ASX Small Ords is up for the week is not in doubt.

Here are some of the small cap movers at both ends of the market.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Cellmid (ASX:CDY) +173%

It could seem like even a blind bat could hit the target if they have some way of detecting the COVID-19 virus, alleviating its spread or even the holy grail of treating it.

Sounds somewhat morbid, but this week’s top gainer Cellmid proved that again after securing a supply of Chinese-made COVID-19 rapid diagnostic tests for sale in Australia.

Cellmid is one of two companies which are importing the Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech-made kit, which works through antibody detection.

Importantly – given the suspicion that has been thrown at Chinese-made test kits and face masks recently – the kits are approved by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and manufactured in a facility certified by the TGA.

RHYTHM Biosciences (ASX:RHY) +134%

Shares in Rhythm, which is developing a blood-based test to replace the government funded faecal test for colorectal cancer, gained this week after it successfully validated a key lead biomarker.

The biomarker can differentiate between cancerous and healthy blood samples and makes up the principal ingredient for its test kit.

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for March 27 – April 3 [intraday]:

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ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Decmil Group (ASX:DCG) -71%

The construction and engineering group rejoined the ASX on Monday after releasing its half-year results last week.

Investors clearly weren’t too keen that the company reported a bottom line loss of $75m that included a full provisioning of losses for amounts owed under the termination of a contract with the New Zealand Department of Corrections.

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks for March 27 – April 3 [intraday]:

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