CLOSING BELL: Nobody’s quite game to pick the bottom after the ASX makes it 5 losses on the trot

ASX waddled to a -0.3% close, like a toddler with a turd in its trousers.
Even the goldies retreated, with the XGD ASX All Ords Gold index dropping 0.20%.
Blackmores sale is the most exciting thing to happen all day… which says it all, really.

It hasn’t been the most exciting of days on the market today, with the benchmark falling -0.5% this morning and then bobbing like a bloated corpse

The biggest news of the day was vitamin company Blackmores (ASX:BKL) soaring more than 23% on news that it has entered into a Scheme Implementation Deed with Kirin Holdings Company, which would see Kirin snaffle up 100% of Blackmore’s shares at $95 a pop in a deal worth close to $2 billion.

That is well above – like, nearly $20 per share above – yesterday’s closing price of $76.79 – which speaks volumes about just how keen the Japanese company, most widely known for its range of beers, is about maintaining its inner health.

Other than that, though, it’s all been a bit of a fizzer. Most market segments are down, with Consumer Discretionary hit hardest of all on -0.84%, while Industrials (-0.69%) and Real Estate (-0.62%) hovered nearby, just in case it was suddenly their turn in the barrel, instead.

The top performer was Utilities, which had one foot either side of break-even for most of the day, but a late rally round 3.15pm saw it and the Telcos finish on the right side of the ledger, up 0.24% and 0.21% respectively.

Materials also managed to salvage a little sumthin’ sumthin’ from an unremarkable day, jumping to +0.17% before the bell rang and everyone stormed the exits.

FROM THE HEADLINES

Aside from a bunch of super-boring (but apparently Very Useful) data being rolled out from the ABS today, there’s not a huge amount of earth-shattering market or business news.

By super-boring, I mean the “guess which bits of Australia are the richest” data, which provided the country with absolutely no surprises – but for anyone interested, Sydney’s Woollahra is the ritziest, and the rural Queensland towns of Woorabinda Aboriginal Shire and the Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire are the most disadvantaged.

I am as shocked as you are. Truly.

About the only really newsworthy thing is this quick gem from Australia Post, which has announced that standing in a queue to buy stamps alongside everyone else who can’t use the internet is about to become a slightly lengthier ordeal.

Australia Post is about to send the careers of around 400 people to the Great PO Box in the Sky, because the organisation is on track to lose a shockingly large sum of money.

“We will post a financial loss this financial year with our letters business, after posting a $189 million dollar loss for the first 6 months of this financial year alone,” Australia Post chief executive Paul Graham told a room that surprisingly actually had people in it this morning.

“It’s a stark message but the Australian community must understand that without change to their national postal service, its long-term viability is at risk,” he continued, before calling for regulatory changes to help the whole thing stay afloat.

What didn’t get a mention is that Australia Post is effectively hamstrung by being stuck in a conceptual limbo, floating in between being a business and a public service – despite many and varied attempts to sell it off over the past 50 years.

But the end result is that 400 of Australia’s most glacial workforce are set to be stuffed into poster tubes and mailed somewhere more convenient, while Mr Graham pockets somewhere around $1,050 an hour (based on last year’s publicly reported pay).

For those of you playing at home, that sum included his base salary of $1.15 million, plus another ~$900k in performance bonuses that he earned by steering the organisation as it was desperately wringing $55 million worth of profit out of $8.8 billion in revenue.

What a star. Worth every penny. Etc etc.

By the way, if Australia Post is on the hunt for a new CEO, I will happily drive it into the ground like a tack for half what the current fella’s getting paid.

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks:

Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap SIT Site Group Int Ltd 0.005 67% 23,537,832 $3,903,735 FFT Future First Tech 0.03 67% 2,241,076 $12,777,058 AXP AXP Energy Ltd 0.003 50% 197,026 $11,649,361 EZZ EZZ Life Science 0.59 46% 600,333 $17,295,525 MDI Middle Island Res 0.043 34% 32,117 $3,917,383 MRQ Mrg Metals Limited 0.004 33% 250,100 $5,957,756 OLL Openlearning 0.033 27% 210,862 $6,964,596 AVE Avecho Biotech Ltd 0.005 25% 3,897,164 $7,351,477 RDS Redstone Resources 0.011 22% 2,231,612 $6,631,492 AM7 Arcadia Minerals 0.22 22% 227,010 $8,405,621 BKL Blackmores Limited 93.79 22% 570,943 $1,493,614,262 A3D Aurora Labs Limited 0.023 21% 697,329 $4,670,353 JRV Jervois Global Ltd 0.105 21% 19,918,249 $180,944,346 SYM Symbio Holdings Ltd 2.02 21% 1,158,199 $142,346,987 ATV Activeportgroupltd 0.18 20% 35,962 $26,434,348 CMX Chemxmaterials 0.12 20% 88,114 $5,066,113 STK Strickland Metals 0.043 19% 1,134,141 $55,977,915 BPP Babylon Pump & Power 0.007 17% 250,000 $14,746,628 LNU Linius Tech Limited 0.0035 17% 70,751,518 $9,689,239 XST Xstate Resources 0.014 17% 918,466 $3,858,230 OMA Omegaoilgaslimited 0.26 16% 11,010,551 $34,407,932 ANR Anatara Ls Ltd 0.03 15% 50,000 $3,118,024 HT8 Harris Technology Gl 0.015 15% 359,513 $3,877,841 LRL Labyrinth Resources 0.015 15% 109,257 $12,473,335 GSN Great Southern 0.023 15% 1,218,166 $13,270,140

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There’s been a late dash to the top of the Small Caps ladder this afternoon, which sees Future First Technologies (ASX:FFT) up 66.7% on a massive surge in interest today. I’m talking volume of 2,136,576 against its four-week average of just 22,433.

That’s due to the company dropping a pearler of a quarterly today, with highlights that include:

69% increase YTD in Annual Recurring License Revenue (ARR): $3.0m
64% increase on FY22 Q3 Total Revenue: $1,054k
49% increase on FY22 Q3 Licensing Revenue: $675k
40% increase on FY23 Q2 Closing Cash Balance: $835k
56% decrease on FY22 Q3 Operating Expenses: $1,254k

This has sparked a burst of activity from investors, who have piled onto the tiny techie that says it’s in the business of “investment in and commercialisation of digital platforms in growth markets”, which sounds a bit like nebulous dotcom-bubble psycho-babble to me.

But I’m sure everyone who’s jumped on board has done their due diligence, right?

Of course you did.

Also livin’ large off a strong quarterly today is EZZ Life Science (ASX:EZZ), which was up a shade over 16% at lunchtime and has closed out the session at +38.2%. Nice.

The company has “demonstrated a strong financial performance in the quarter, with cash receipts from customers totalling $11.2 million, a 30% increase from the previous quarter and a 182% increase on the same period last year”, according to the release.

EZZ’s operating cash flows increased by a massive 371% over the previous quarter to $2.8m, leaving the company in a strong cash position at $12.3 million, an increase of about $2.7 million compared to the previous quarter.

Micro Capper Linius Tech (ASX:LNU) has bumped out a 33% surge on a massive volume spike, after announcing a deal that will see its Whizzard product used in the IMG Replay service, “virtualising the entire IMG Replay archive to make it more searchable and usable”.

IMG Replay represents the fourth new client signed by LNU in the past five months and is the largest contract to date. The new customer for Linius Tech is a licensing and video clip production platform, that appears to specialise in historic sporting event footage.

It also holds rights to footage of every Miss Universe contest dating back to 1958, so if ogling women in bikinis who are probably long dead by now is your thing, you know where to find it.

The new deal comes a week after Linius raised just over $1 million to bring its two “standardised and repeatable products” Whizzard and MatchVision to profitability.

TODAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the least best performing ASX small cap stocks:

Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap HHI Health House Int Ltd 0.0055 -39% 4,890,230 $1,604,022 CCE Carnegie Cln Energy 0.001 -33% 4,579,475 $23,463,861 GNM Great Northern 0.002 -33% 26,399,999 $5,127,153 MEB Medibio Limited 0.001 -33% 333,333 $6,225,891 TIG Tigers Realm Coal 0.007 -30% 39,345,554 $130,667,024 DRA DRA Global Limited 1.53 -27% 4,332 $114,315,100 GLH Global Health Ltd 0.155 -23% 4,125 $11,600,676 WCN White Cliff Min Ltd 0.007 -22% 2,387,349 $8,631,490 AGR Aguia Res Ltd 0.039 -22% 541,174 $21,692,713 AUK Aumake Limited 0.004 -20% 4,385,583 $5,258,901 CAV Carnavale Resources 0.002 -20% 125,000 $6,833,879 GLE GLG Corp Ltd 0.225 -20% 19,286 $20,748,000 PVS Pivotal Systems 0.009 -18% 3,662,220 $2,750,156 AUH Austchina Holdings 0.005 -17% 21,528 $12,467,302 IDA Indiana Resources 0.04 -17% 1,307,010 $24,177,831 MCT Metalicity Limited 0.0025 -17% 2,830,000 $10,513,618 OAU Ora Gold Limited 0.0025 -17% 20,000 $11,810,775 LRV Larvottoresources 0.275 -15% 3,201,013 $21,857,785 SKN Skin Elements Ltd 0.011 -15% 97,500 $6,059,754 CBL Control Bionics 0.14 -15% 76,021 $14,929,040 UNT Unith Ltd 0.028 -15% 9,419,831 $29,397,658 NXM Nexus Minerals Ltd 0.115 -15% 7,100,673 $43,936,197 1ST 1St Group Ltd 0.006 -14% 4,224,160 $9,474,733 ERAR Energy Resources 0.006 -14% 12,579,550 $129,198,412 HCT Holista CollTech Ltd 0.012 -14% 1,233,792 $3,903,201

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LAST ORDERS

Yesterday, Larvotto Resources (ASX:LRV) got pinged by the ASX for a couple of things recently, in relation to a price query (the usual ASX speeding ticket) and a more substantial request for remediation on an announcement the company made to the market yesterday.

This all kicked off after LRV announced bonanza grade results of total rare earth element oxide (TREO) results from recent aircore drilling at the company’s Merivale South Prospect (100%) in Western Australia on 18 April.

Larvotto followed that up with a portfolio update, and that’s when the ASX stepped in with a price query, and an additional request that the company “release all available results on other projects to ensure the market is fully informed of all drilling analytical information in compliance with JORC 2012 and LRs 5.7 and 5.22”.

Larvotto has since delivered on that request with a bunch of facts and figures and maps and tables and stuff, which should be enough to see the company out of its trading halt by tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Tombola Gold (ASX:TBA) is set to put a broom through the boardroom, after securing an extension to its current secured debt facility today.

TBA says the company paid off a $500,000 chunk of the facility this morning, leaving a balance of approximately $4,575,250 due, with an extension agreed for the final settlement of the balance to 9 May 2023 – which isn’t very far away.

The announcement coincides with the re-resignation of executive directors Rod Watt and Trevor Coombe, who had both lodged their resignations with the company several months ago.

However, “due to the Company’s circumstances over the past five months, no suitable replacements could be secured and engaged”, the company says, adding: “Accordingly, both parties have remained engaged on an interim basis to assist the Company with suitable transitional arrangements.”