The S&P/ASX Emerging Companies (XEC) index was up about 0.5% at 3pm in Sydney on Friday, but our brave little Caboose is about 2.1% lower for the week.

Meanwhile, the ASX 200, is down about 0.6%. Over the last five days, it’s gained 0.5%, but is now 2.60% down for the year to date.

That midweek escalation of tensions in the Crimea just hoovered up confidence,  leaving all kinds of fears of an economic conflagration and – even more awful – an accentuation of persistent global inflationary pressures.

And all this – just as we were trying to wrap our heads around what’s certain to be perplexing new set of cash-rate policy positions out of the US Fed, the RBA , the ECB and the contrarians at the RBNZ.

But in China…

…inflation is soft and cuddly… cuddly enough for the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to be loosening monetary policy while everyone else be tightening.

From Singapore, IG’s Jun Rong Yeap says, “uncertainty over a potential invasion will be sufficient to keep market participants shunning risk assets, while flocking to safe-havens.”

And gold prices are looking comfy at eight-month highs.

“The attempt by equity bulls to reclaim the 200-day MA for the S&P 500 has been unsuccessful, with the recent sell-off wiping out Tuesday’s gains, ” Jun says.

So it’s a new ball game for global markets – with another extra layer of volatility underpinning markets which now appear tethered to an impenetrably grave and unhappy news cycle.

And as we saw late yesterday, wild headlines can swing sentiment wildly – although, in age of disinformation, it’s always best to fact check any Ukrainian invasions of Russia, especially when it’s reported by the Russian-controlled news agency RIA Novosti.

 

Upcoming IPO’s for this month

Catalano Seafood (ASX:CSF)

Listing: 24 February

IPO: $6m at $0.20

The seafood processor, wholesaler, retailer and exporter has plans to expand its distribution network, aiming to roll out its Seafood Management Solution to supermarkets.

Along with increasing its sales and marketing capabilities, the company will also use the funds to upgrade processing equipment.

Omnia Metals Group (ASX:OM1)

Listing: 21 February

IPO: $5.5m at $0.20

The explorer will be focused on two projects, the Ord Basin project along the WA/NT border, and the Albany-Fraser project in the state’s southwest.

The company says meaningful exploration around the Ord Basin has been limited over the past 50 years, so the project represents “a district scale, greenfields exploration opportunity for copper, nickel and PGE deposit types.”

At the Albany-Fraser project, Omnia plans to leverage historical data to explore for intrusive-hosted nickel-copper sulphide deposits.

 

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS:

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for February 14 – 18:

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Golden Cross (ASX:GCR) the formerly sleepy copper explorer is out of suspension and madly up 1058% for the week after completing a $1.5m cap raise and satisfying the ASX’s conditions of reinstatement.

Horseshoe Metals (ASX:HOR) – like Golden Cross – is back on the playing field after a lengthy suspension and – with a capital raise of well over $2 million – the copper-gold explorer is up over 180% this week and good to go. It’s JV with Kopore Metals (ASX:KPT) at the Horseshoe Lights Mine is looking good, after KPT successfully met its first year minimum spend earlier this month.

Lakes Blue Energy (ASX:LKO) took off on Wednesday after announcing a positive drilling update to its Wellesley-2 Well in Queensland’s Surat Basin. The energy play is 50% up since Monday.

And Argonaut (ASX:ARE) says the Zambian Government is finally investigating the nixing of its lucrative copper-cobalt Lumwana West exploration licence. It’s up 25% this week.  In January, Zambian officials unexpectedly canceled ARE’s  exploration license.

 

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks for February 14 – 18:

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Zebit (ASX:ZEB)  recommenced trading this week, but probably shouldn’t have after initially flagging plans to delist.

The stock promptly slumped to and is currently turning hands at a discount of 95% from its October 2020 IPO price, when it raised $35m from investors.

Newly-listed employee and consumer rewards, loyalty and engagement program platform provider My Rewards (ASX:MRI) is also down after its recent IPO.

The firm runs a cloud-based, e-commerce platform where members access exclusive discounts and such. MRI says it’s hooked up some 4.5 million members with clients like Telstra and Ramsay Health.

Just a few hot days after listing on the ASX, and  raising $6m at $0.20 the rare earths and gold specialist Killi Resources (ASX:KLI) has come steadily back to common earth this week, shedding 26% despite starting a district-wide geochemical evaluation of its WA tenement package.

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