Rise and Shine: Everything you need to know before the ASX opens

Good morning everyone, and welcome to 05 January, 2024 – an important date on the literary calendar as it marks the 71st anniversary of the inaugural public performance of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett’s interminable waste of everybody’s time, Waiting for Godot.

For those of you who slept through high school English, the play – at a very superficial surface level – centres on two men, waiting in a park for someone called Godot.

The two men are Vladimir and Estragon – the latter of which sounds more like a topical cream for women going through The Change of Life than an actual name – and the play centres on them sitting about, waiting for the titular Godot who (spoiler alert) never shows up.

The initial public performance took place in the Théâtre du Babylone in Paris, and while no one’s quite sure whether it was the quality of the French translation or the fact that the play genuinely feels like it drags on forever while absolutely nothing happens, it certainly had an effect on early audiences.

Quite a number of Parisian audience members reportedly showed how much they enjoyed the production, making timely use of the half-time intermission by leaving the building entirely to go somewhere more entertaining.

On at least one occasion, the French production was halted by an all-in brawl between audience members who thought it was, as Beckett himself might say, “utter gobshite” and those who vehemently disagreed.

It debuted, in English, in London two years later to a similar reception, mot notable for the “open hostility” and “waves of audible yawning” among audience members before they, too, stormed the exits at half time.

Still, bafflingly, it remains a mainstay of pompous theatre actors and even pompouser audiences, no doubt because it is as much an act of intellectual defiance to enjoy it, as it is an act of mental endurance to sit through the entire thing without punching whoever you’re sitting next to.

If you haven’t seen it, don’t. If you want to see it, let me save you a couple of potentially violent hours by sharing a whittled-down and vastly superior version of the play, as performed by two Sesame Street puppets – the effervescent Grover and the perennially suicidal Telly Monster – in Monsterpiece Theatre’s Waiting for Elmo.

And now that I’ve quite probably completely derailed your thought processes and mental equilibrium for the morning, let’s crack on with some far more important stories… such as Bevis Yeo’s inaugural look at what’s cooking in oil and gas for 2024, and Nadine McGrath’s first chance to to have a look at which directors are putting their own skin in the game.

Plus, down below, there’s all the data and digits that the number nerds seem to love, because Rise and Shine just wouldn’t be the same without it.

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: US$2,044.10 (+0.16%)

Silver: US$23.01 (+0.20%)

Nickel (3mth): US$16,209.10/t (-0.78%)

Copper (3mth): US$8,418.35/t (-0.26%)

Oil (WTI): US$73.155 (+0.61%)

Oil (Brent): US$78.739 (+0.64%)

Iron 62pc Fe: US$144.16/t (-0.05%)

AUD/USD: 0.6740 (+0.07%)

Bitcoin: US$43,218.70 (+0.85%)

ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS

Today’s best performing small cap stocks:

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Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap CLE Cyclone Metals 0.0015 50% 1,243,632 $10,471,172 MTM MTM Critical Metals 0.1 43% 35,499,053 $6,960,596 RCR Rincon 0.035 35% 3,199,950 $4,619,235 1AG Alterra Limited 0.008 33% 380,000 $4,992,883 CRB Carbine Resources 0.008 33% 350,034 $3,310,427 FAU First Au Ltd 0.004 33% 496,262 $4,985,980 LSR Lodestar Minerals 0.004 33% 2,040,808 $6,070,192 PL3 Patagonia Lithium 0.14 27% 109,426 $5,404,135 ICI Icandy Interactive 0.034 26% 7,067,520 $36,239,553 EDE Eden Inv Ltd 0.0025 25% 712,597 $7,334,027 KPO Kalina Power Limited 0.005 25% 20,250 $8,840,512 CPO Culpeominerals 0.054 23% 28,250,076 $5,128,744 WA1 Wa1Resourcesltd 14.78 22% 663,186 $516,675,105 TLM Talisman Mining 0.285 21% 2,132,386 $44,255,282 NPM Newpeak Metals 0.02 21% 273,257 $1,649,204 AKM Aspire Mining Ltd 0.175 21% 1,578,962 $73,607,363 DAF Discovery Alaska Ltd 0.03 20% 107,000 $5,855,867 KNM Kneomedia Limited 0.003 20% 24,182 $3,833,178 OAR OAR Resources Ltd 0.003 20% 1,816,379 $6,609,319 BMM Balkanminingandmin 0.125 19% 393 $7,459,254 TSL Titanium Sands Ltd 0.013 18% 117,734 $21,931,032 M24 Mamba Exploration 0.055 17% 413,564 $3,011,867 UVA Uvrelimited 0.14 17% 144,002 $3,971,787 ASR Asra Minerals Ltd 0.007 17% 1,650,501 $9,818,974 PRX Prodigy Gold NL 0.007 17% 82,154 $10,506,647

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Out in front of Small Caps land early was Culpeo Minerals (ASX:CPO), which – it seems – is unable to stop delivering great news, backing up December’s big announcement with a fresh one about the company delineating a “large (1.7km x 0.5km footprint) copper-gold porphyry system” at its La Florida Prospect, inside the Fortuna Project in Chile.

Culpeo says that surface sampling results have returned grades up to 3.96% Cu and 2.61g/t Au, with mineralisation styles that are analogous to the company’s Lana Corina Prospect, which itself returned drill intersections of 257m @ 1.10% Cu Eq and 169m @ 1.21% CuEq.

Orion Equities (ASX:OEQ) was continuing its efforts to make hay off the back of Wednesday’s announcement that its subsidiary CXM Pty Ltd stands to pocket about $5 million in a royalty payment from Miracle Iron Holdings. That’s after Miracle moved to acquire the Paulsens East Iron Ore Project located in the Pilbara, Western Australia from Strike Resources (ASX:SRK).

And Wednesday’s high-flyer, Pan Asia Metals (ASX:PAM), is also continuing its blistering run, up another 15.8% on recent news that it is set to acquire a 100% interest in the massive Tama Atacama Chilean lithium brine asset, which comprises some 1,200km2 of “Tier 1” ground.

MTM Critical Metals (ASX:MTM) made a remarkable recovery from Wednesday’s form slump, which saw it shed 23% of the back of news that drilling results “further confirm rare earth element (REE) and niobium (Nb) mineralisation over broad intervals in previously untested parts of the Pomme carbonatite complex”.

MTM took off at a brisk pace around 2:00pm, closing out the day 50% better off at $0.105 per share.

ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Today’s worst performing small cap stocks:

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Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap AVMDC Advance Metals Ltd 0.036 -40% 3 $2,167,040 ME1 Melodiol Glb Health 0.0015 -25% 6,739,607 $9,457,648 MHC Manhattan Corp Ltd 0.003 -25% 352,000 $11,747,919 88E 88 Energy Ltd 0.004 -20% 5,382,421 $123,204,013 DCL Domacom Limited 0.016 -20% 253,100 $8,710,035 TMK TMK Energy Limited 0.0065 -19% 1,246,112 $48,980,634 SRK Strike Resources 0.051 -18% 1,665,980 $17,592,500 AMD Arrow Minerals 0.005 -17% 4,708,451 $20,842,591 BFC Beston Global Ltd 0.01 -17% 2,511,234 $23,964,563 CTO Citigold Corp Ltd 0.005 -17% 474,989 $17,241,955 ESR Estrella Res Ltd 0.005 -17% 67,523 $10,556,231 ZMM Zimi Ltd 0.041 -16% 305,000 $5,899,472 NRX Noronex Limited 0.011 -15% 3,825,985 $4,917,923 CRS Caprice Resources 0.03 -14% 1,670,906 $7,819,710 MRZ Mont Royal Resources 0.13 -13% 150,000 $12,754,469 SLZ Sultan Resources Ltd 0.02 -13% 350,000 $3,408,371 AVE Avecho Biotech Ltd 0.0035 -13% 43 $12,677,188 EPM Eclipse Metals 0.007 -13% 388,003 $16,500,434 FGL Frugl Group Limited 0.007 -13% 5,707,179 $8,333,505 ICN Icon Energy Limited 0.007 -13% 63,500 $6,144,109 KZR Kalamazoo Resources 0.11 -12% 15,306 $21,421,184 SVG Savannah Goldfields 0.044 -12% 215,086 $10,038,678 HMD Heramed Limited 0.023 -12% 1,292,620 $8,352,869 CTN Catalina Resources 0.004 -11% 1,399,350 $5,573,191 SHO Sportshero Ltd 0.016 -11% 109,640 $11,120,991

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TRADING HALTS

Nope. Day 2 of no halting. If this keeps up, we’re going to have to fire the work experience kid. I don’t care who his uncle is… If there’s no halt to all this no halting, he can go back to university to finish his degree.

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