ASX down more than 1pc,
All sectors in the red
Mineral Commodities leads strong day across small cap winners
Local markets have ended their quietly astonishing eight-day merry-go-lucky streak, failing on the ninth attempt at a positive close on Thursday.
At 4.15pm on February 1, the S&P/ASX200 was down 92.50 points or 1.2% to 7,588.20
Via Google
Just a day after making a fresh record high at 7682.3, the benchmark has reminded us of what a terrific slumper it can be, slumping almost 100 points and giving back all of Wednesday’s gains and some more, showing the same ashen faced cowardice with which yesterday’s bulls went about their business on Wall Street overnight.
By lunchtime in Sydney, it was apparent that no one was feeling chipper, so losses were kicked off by the blue chip members of the local bourse who were determined to not come out and play on Day 9 of what’s admittedly been a pretty impressive streak.
The end of the month aligned with the end of a cracking quarter for the ASX200, gaining about 11%.
The US Fed surprised no-one when it held the note for a fourth straight month, keeping US interest rates steady at the highest level since 2001 and making it clear it “does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward” its goal of 2%.
All stocks, everywhere fell in Sydney all at once, ending the brief giddy highs from the previous session’s 7680.70 points splurge, driven hopelessly by dreams of interest rate cuts.
“We’re not declaring victory at all,” Fed chair J Powell said post-match, adding it was unlikely the US central bank would get to that level of comfort by its next rate meeting in March.
All these dashed hopes fell upon the soft earnings misses from Mega Tech companies, Microsoft, Alphabet and AMD. And so the ship was abandoned.
All 11 ASX sectors ended lower, with the Banks, Real Estate, Industrials and the IT sector, shaming to the greatest degree.
South32 (ASX:S32) BHP (ASX:BHP) , CSL (ASX:CSL) . Novonix (ASX:NVX) Appen (ASX:APX) and Zip Co (ASX:ZIP), out front of the many underperformers.
On the upside, Materials and Energy weren’t totally routed, despite the RBA’s Index of Commodity Prices tumbling by 10.4% year-on-year in January 2024, slowing from an upwardly revised 11.2% drop during December.
It was the 11th straight month of contraction but the softest pace since March, led by lower thermal coal and liquified natural gas prices.
The index fell 7.1% in Aussie dollar terms.
Anyway, I’ve left yesterday’s sectors further below, just because of the rare and pretty symmetry the two charts provide, back to back
Via MarketIndex
In the States…
The Federal Reserve kept the fund’s rate unchanged at a 23-year high of 5.25%-5.5% on Wednesday and discarded the formal guidance that had maintained the possibility of rate hikes.
Still, during the press conference, everyone’s man, Chairman J. Powell stated that the Fed just didn’t have enough confidence in the inflation trajectory to even think about cutting interest rates in March.
So here’s a pin for your hope balloon.
US Futures were higher in Sydney at 4pm on Thursday.
Via Fox
ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS
Today’s best performing small cap stocks:
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Mineral Commodities (ASX:MRC) has smacked Thursday out of the park with a sweetly struck upbeat quarterly late yesterday which soared through the world of Aussie graphite mining and landed MRC stock a near 85% boost.
The company recently completed a Rights Issue, raising $8.8 million to help fund its core activities, which currently revolve around recommencement of operations at the Skaland Graphite mine, and meeting payment obligations as the company works towards 100% ownership of the project.
Meanwhile, we cross to the wee cap healthcare end of the bourse, where Singular Health Group (ASX:SHG) added a 48% jump to its bag of tricks this morning, coming out of a trading halt with the announcement that it has locked in a purchase order for 50 3Dicom R&D licences and 5,000 3Dicom Patient licences, for total value of approximately $152,000, via the Roseman University of Health Sciences in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“While the $152k contract is not huge, the purchase means that Roseman University has become the first US College to adopt Singular’s 3Dicom R&D software as a medical education tool, in a market forecast to be worth USD$17.6 billion by 2027,” Eddy reported this morning.
Another outlier on Thursday is Culpeo Minerals (ASX:CPO), the Aussie-based copper exploration and development upstart digging across its assets in Chile.
The ASX called CPO out for a Visual Estimate of Mineralisation Query, and on Monday CPO was fairly adamant in its confirmation.
Up almost 50% on Thursday, it almost seems like someone else visually confirmed the visual confirmation very recently as well.
BPM Minerals is also making some healthy strides at the end of the day, following a cheerful quarterly on Wednesday as well as news that the company has kicked off a 10,000m drilling program along strike of Capricorn Metals’ (ASX:CMM) 3.24Moz Mt Gibson Gold Project, just 500m from Capricorn’s recent intersection of 16m @ 17.16g/t from 32m.
ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS
Today’s best performing small cap stocks:
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The post Closing Bell: ASX investors abandon ship after eight straight days on a sea of green appeared first on Stockhead.
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