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

Good morning everyone, and welcome to 11 January, 2024 – an important date in geopolitical history, as it was on this day in 1994 that Ukraine signed a pretty important piece of paper – an agreement to willingly surrender the world’s third-largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.

There is a lot of history behind this, so I’m going to have to paraphrase, but here’s how it all went down.

Ukraine was one of the titular republics that made up the USSR, starting all the way back in 1922.

Between then and the 1990s, a bunch of really important stuff happened (look at me go, paraphrasing history like an utter champion) until in 1991, the citizens of Ukraine were given the opportunity to have their say about being part of Russia.

They stormed the exits, becoming an independent nation perched atop the bread bowl of Eastern Europe, on land that was almost overflowing with terrible Soviet-era architecture, and assorted knick-knacks, such as nuclear warheads with “Property of Glorious Russian Motherland” stamped on the side.

That put Russia – and, by extension, the US and UK – in a difficult position, especially as the fashion out of Europe at the time was the dismantling of nuclear capabilities.

After what I suspect was a combination of pleading, outright threats and – let’s be realistic – countless millions in bribes, Ukraine decided to go along with the plan to hand over its nuclear weapons.

The main reason, according to Ukrainian officials at the time, was that the warheads were technically still under the complete command and control of Russia – and, unable to bypass the security features and claim them as their own, the missiles were effectively massive, radioactive and very explodey white elephants that the country didn’t need.

At the time, it was hailed as a major breakthrough for world peace. Now… it looks like it was a well-intentioned but ultimately massive mistake, as it’s hard to conceive that anyone in charge of Russia would willingly march an army into a neighbouring nuclear power and start peeing on everything to claim dominion over it all.

But with the nuclear threat off the table, the inevitable outcome of living next to a massive bully has come to bear, and Ukraine and Russia are currently kicking the snot out of each other in an ongoing military disaster that is showing no signs of stopping any time soon. So… hooray?

There’s another group of people who are also showing signs of dedication to the cause, and that’s the team at Stockhead, where every day is a cavalcade of whimsy, often rudely interrupted by whatever’s happening on the ASX.

To get your brain in gear this morning, we’ve got Michael Washbourne’s look at Jindalee’s 22-year climb to the top of the lithium ladder in the US, and Eddy Sunarto’s been doing his homework to find out what’s making solar energy player Clearvue tick.

Plus, down below, there’s all the data and digits and sundry bits of flim-flam that combine to make up the data that drives us all slightly more mad, with every passing day.

COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES

Gold: US$2,032.70 (+0.12%)

Silver: US$23.03 (+0.02%)

Nickel (3mth): US$15,819.80/t (-2.02%)

Copper (3mth): US$8,439.32/t (-0.26%)

Oil (WTI): US$72.33 (+0.11%)

Oil (Brent): US$77.71 (+0.12%)

Iron 62pc Fe: US$140.52/t (+0.25%)

AUD/USD: 0.6699 (+0.23%)

Bitcoin: US$45,749.20 (-0.81%)

WHAT GOT YOU TALKING

Yesterday’s resources news had everyone on the edge of their seats – metaphorically speaking, of course. Here’s a link to what went down…

In #resources news, @MRLMinRes (#ASX:$MIN) scoops up 9.97% of #lithium explorer @KaliMetals; plus #uranium enrichment hopefuls Silex Systems Limited and @Global_Uranium gain. https://t.co/u40v2bMfqV

— Stockhead (@StockheadAU) January 10, 2024

YESTERDAY’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 ME1 Melodiol Glb Health 0.002 100% 1,912,869 $4,728,824 KM1 Kalimetalslimited 0.77 47% 24,144,788 $40,079,600 EMP Emperor Energy Ltd 0.015 36% 12,447,577 $3,748,112 LIO Lion Energy Limited 0.019 36% 1,625,227 $6,117,689 BP8 Bph Global Ltd 0.002 33% 250,000 $2,753,345 NVQ Noviqtech Limited 0.004 33% 11,876,446 $3,928,336 SIS Simble Solutions 0.004 33% 3,821,511 $1,808,852 CPO Culpeominerals 0.125 30% 22,866,243 $11,189,987 GUE Global Uranium 0.13 30% 3,017,089 $21,220,897 ADD Adavale Resource Ltd 0.009 29% 6,451,892 $5,226,120 FFG Fatfish Group 0.039 26% 28,469,207 $43,097,430 CHK Cohiba Min Ltd 0.0025 25% 611,185 $5,060,460 29M 29Metalslimited 0.7 23% 2,580,461 $399,749,738 FHS Freehill Mining Ltd. 0.011 22% 47,083,083 $25,648,510 AKM Aspire Mining Ltd 0.145 21% 346,928 $60,916,438 HTA Hutchison 0.036 20% 240,070 $407,175,257 BMG BMG Resources Ltd 0.012 20% 5,186,551 $6,337,972 CXU Cauldron Energy Ltd 0.037 19% 10,230,951 $35,118,011 YRL Yandal Resources 0.155 19% 169,002 $30,514,400 EMD Emyria Limited 0.07 19% 2,731,642 $21,631,134 1AE Auroraenergymetals 0.13 18% 1,314,809 $17,512,762 NWF Newfield Resources 0.13 18% 7,524 $99,354,467 MAG Magmatic Resrce Ltd 0.046 18% 146,796 $11,922,019 ICE Icetana Limited 0.033 18% 91,821 $7,409,596 NMT Neometals Ltd 0.205 17% 3,812,200 $108,970,805

WordPress Table Plugin

Yesterday’s Small Caps highlights were:

Market newbie Kali Metals (ASX:KM1) was absolutely crushing it again in early trade, up 38% and bucking the overall sell-off trend that hit the ASX’s lithium players pretty hard yesterday.

Kali dropped a well-timed announcement about rock chip and soil sampling that was carried out prior to its IPO this week, with results confirming that spodumene has been identified at Spargoville, part of its Higginsville lithium district in WA. Kali’s price continued to improve, moving beyond +46% by mid-afternoon.

Culpeo Minerals (ASX:CPO) was also on the move again, after the company spent a couple of days becoming pen pals with the watchdogs at the ASX over who knew what and when in relation to the company finding a copper-gold porphyry system at La Florida.

The correspondence is all a little convoluted, but the gist of it is that Culpeo got a bunch of results from rock chip sampling on the morning of 26 December – but, Culpeo says, it then took a while to get those results confirmed and the information out to market, which explains why it didn’t go public with the results until 04 January.

So the ASX wanted to know why it looked like there was something similar to a betting plunge on Culpeo stocks over the period between those dates, when the information had not been disclosed.

Culpeo says it’s all above board, and that any delays in getting the data out were simply down to the holiday season and staff availability other such Christmassy things.

While we’re on the topic of correspondence, Fatfish Group (ASX:FFG) got a speeding ticket, asking for an explanation for why it’s become hot property in recent days, climbing from $0.013 to $0.039 since 21 December.

Fatfish pointed to its recently completed, oversubscribed cap raise from earlier in the month, and suggested that might be the reason why.

Emperor Energy (ASX:EMP) put on some late value in the wake of an announcement entitled “Judith Permeability Update”, which confirmed that Judith is, indeed, quite permeable and very gassy.

It also noted that Judith isn’t, as I assumed, a nursing home resident… it is, in fact, the name of a well first drilled by Shell in 1989, which Emperor has been busily probing as part of an updated petrophysical evaluation.

Meanwhile, another uranium explorer, Gladiator Resources (ASX:GLA), took off rapidly in early trade on the back of news that re-analysis of uranium samples from a trenching program at Southwest Corner – part of the Mkuju project in Tanzania – have come back above the detection limit (4245ppm U3O8) returned grades up to 7139ppm.

YESTERDAY’S ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS

Here are the worst performing ASX small cap stocks:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap AVW Avira Resources Ltd 0.001 -50% 649,998 $4,267,580 TX3 Trinex Minerals Ltd 0.006 -25% 64,381 $11,896,197 AUK Aumake Limited 0.004 -20% 177,320 $9,572,034 SKN Skin Elements Ltd 0.004 -20% 2,059,657 $2,947,430 8VI 8Vi Holdings Limited 0.061 -19% 2,530 $3,143,357 YAR Yari Minerals Ltd 0.009 -18% 4,666 $5,305,936 ASQ Australian Silica 0.048 -17% 360,400 $16,347,902 ESR Estrella Res Ltd 0.005 -17% 300,000 $10,556,231 OAR OAR Resources Ltd 0.0025 -17% 10,500 $7,931,183 BVR Bellavistaresources 0.099 -14% 63,829 $5,705,262 A1G African Gold Ltd. 0.031 -14% 217,014 $6,095,204 KAL Kalgoorliegoldmining 0.025 -14% 12,094 $4,596,521 CZN Corazon Ltd 0.013 -13% 1,000,000 $9,233,968 EXT Excite Technology 0.007 -13% 581,900 $10,633,934 MHC Manhattan Corp Ltd 0.0035 -13% 150,000 $11,747,919 C29 C29Metalslimited 0.071 -12% 60,000 $4,371,320 OD6 Od6Metalsltd 0.11 -12% 238,328 $6,876,937 EVZ EVZ Limited 0.15 -12% 4,537 $20,585,626 MBK Metal Bank Ltd 0.024 -11% 223,334 $10,542,401 KLI Killiresources 0.056 -11% 10,000 $3,753,229 CDD Cardno Limited 0.32 -11% 11,354 $14,061,839 EFE Eastern Resources 0.008 -11% 2,517,209 $11,177,518 GGE Grand Gulf Energy 0.008 -11% 2,345,111 $18,857,223 OSL Oncosil Medical 0.008 -11% 848,110 $17,770,870 DKM Duketon Mining 0.165 -11% 53,151 $22,612,506

WordPress Table Plugin