Good morning everyone, and welcome to 19 February, 2024 – a notable day in the annals of public health, as it was on this day in 1910 that someone decided that a young lady, who was carrying a highly contagious infection, should be allowed to leave detention – sparking further deadly outbreaks of typhoid in the United States.
She was, of course, Mary Mallon, but you probably know her better by her subsequent nickname, Typhoid Mary. A poorly-educated Irish immigrant, Mary was the first person in the United States to be identified as an “asymptomatic carrier” of typhoid.
Everywhere she went, she spread typhoid – a life-threatening infection caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi – which, as it turns out, a small portion of the population is effectively immune to.
People like Mary can carry it, and spread it around – which Mary did quite efficiently, to the point where she was forcibly detained in 1907 until 1910, when she was released.
Unable to accept or comprehend that she was carrying the disease, Mary would often change her name and change jobs to avoid being detained again, and for 5 more years she moved from household to household, infecting people along the way.
Authorities eventually managed to lock her up again in 1915, and she was kept in mandatory detention until 1938, until she died of pneumonia – becoming, unwittingly, the poster child for a generation of anti-mask Typhoid Mary-style “activists” who would, in a similar fashion, refuse to take basic precautions to stop the spread of Covid, often dying just to prove their point that wearing a mask was for idiots.
On a healthier note, we’ve got a bunch of wonderful work by the Stockhead team for you today, including Eddy Sunarto’s Hot Money Monday, Guy on Rocks and Christian Edwards’ take on what’s looming for the ASX this week.
And, as always there’s words and numbers down below to help you sound like you know what you’re doing when the market opens later on this morning.
COMMODITY/FOREX/CRYPTO MARKET PRICES
Gold: US$2,013.43 (-0.00%)
Silver: US$23.41 (-0.00%)
Nickel (3mth): US$16,084.00/t (-0.95%)
Copper (3mth): US$8,321.15/t (+2.07%)
Oil (WTI): US$79.38 (+1.72%)
Oil (Brent): US$83.58 (+0.88%)
Iron 62pc Fe: US$1229.29/t (+0.09%)
AUD/USD: 0.6532 (+0.21%)
Bitcoin: US$51,925.70 (+0.55%)
WHAT GOT YOU TALKING
Can Canberra’s superheroes swoop in to save the Aussie nickel industry? Josh Chiat’s unpacked a rapidly evolving issue facing a critical mineral.
Canberra has flown in its first step to save the Aussie #nickel sector, placing the metal on the #criticalminerals list. https://t.co/Y1Mp4kCWnh
— Stockhead (@StockheadAU) February 16, 2024
FRIDAY’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 JAV Javelin Minerals Ltd 0.002 100% 1,715,977 $1,633,729 RBR RBR Group Ltd 0.003 50% 7,977,562 $3,236,809 YPB YPB Group Ltd 0.003 50% 333,333 $1,580,923 R8R Regener8Resourcesnl 0.18 44% 54,928 $3,207,031 WAG Theaustralianwealth 0.35 40% 399,234 $18,591,250 ADS Adslot Ltd. 0.002 33% 7,086,018 $4,836,743 NET Netlinkz Limited 0.004 33% 500,000 $11,635,345 RML Resolution Minerals 0.004 33% 150,000 $3,779,990 LCL LCL Resources Ltd 0.013 30% 2,973,988 $9,552,255 ATH Alterity Therap Ltd 0.005 25% 207,512 $17,531,019 KNM Kneomedia Limited 0.0025 25% 367,747 $3,066,543 TAS Tasman Resources Ltd 0.005 25% 113,005 $2,850,677 TOY Toys R Us 0.01 25% 523,497 $7,859,708 NVX Novonix Limited 0.86 23% 9,613,063 $342,206,054 EAX Energy Action Ltd 0.225 22% 14,152 $5,571,016 ARR American Rare Earths 0.37 21% 10,763,041 $136,159,106 BRN Brainchip Ltd 0.345 21% 35,640,368 $514,657,185 RLG Roolife Group Ltd 0.006 20% 863,087 $3,612,791 TRI Trivarx Ltd 0.025 19% 423,147 $7,103,852 WR1 Winsome Resources 0.76 18% 2,698,802 $123,056,358 BMM Balkanminingandmin 0.08 18% 430,156 $4,830,755 SP3 Specturltd 0.02 18% 660,290 $3,942,655 LPM Lithium Plus 0.2 18% 63,818 $14,617,994 CCR Credit Clear 0.235 18% 569,740 $83,471,173 ATC Altech Batt Ltd 0.088 17% 15,523,002 $123,999,442
Friday’s Small Cap Winners included:
The Australian Wealth Advisors Group (ASX:WAG) made its debut this morning, and was leading a clumsy rush up the small cap ladder through the afternoon session, up close to 50% from its $0.25 IPO price that brought in $5 million.
The company, which refers to itself as AWAG, was “founded in Melbourne in September 2021 by a group of experienced financial market professionals as a holding company”, and has a stated mission to “acquire and build upon sound, profitable and complementary Australian financial services businesses.”
Adslot (ASX:ADS) was up on news of the launch of a new wholly-owned subsidiary called Br1dge, a New York based tech company “established to capitalise on the significant opportunities emerging with the imminent deprecation of 3rd party cookies”.
Third party cookies are the privacy-invading snippets of code that websites leave on your computer so advertisers can continue beaming you ads for monster-sized sex toys long after you’re done with that part of your browsing for the evening and scuttled back to Reddit in shame.
Big tech is phasing out the use of those cookies – most browsers won’t accept them by the end of the year – but by the looks of things, Adslot (via Br1dge) has found a workaround that will keep the targeted ads rolling in, so… hooray?
Olympio Metals (ASX:OLY) saw a bit of a rush in the morning, after the company advised the market that it’s current diamond drilling programme at the Cadillac Project is “well advanced and ahead of schedule”, with 22 holes completed to date on four separate pegmatite targets.
Mighty Kingdom (ASX:MKL) climbed higher after informing the market after hours on Thursday of its intention to buy back all MKL shares held by Gamestar Studios – all 59,657,143 of them – for the princely sum of $1.
MKL said last month a “definitive proposal” – ie: restructuring, cap raising and board appointments was expected to be put to another EGM no later than February 28.
FRIDAY’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 PRX Prodigy Gold NL 0.005 -38% 10,801,156 $14,008,863 BP8 Bph Global Ltd 0.001 -33% 928,307 $2,931,174 MTL Mantle Minerals Ltd 0.002 -33% 55,555 $18,592,338 JCS Jcurve Solutions 0.026 -28% 313,559 $11,820,364 NVQ Noviqtech Limited 0.003 -25% 315,960 $5,237,781 AUK Aumake Limited 0.004 -20% 11,800 $9,572,034 GMN Gold Mountain Ltd 0.004 -20% 5,170,000 $11,389,393 PUR Pursuit Minerals 0.004 -20% 767,373 $14,719,857 RR1 Reach Resources Ltd 0.002 -20% 2,432,539 $8,025,743 NEU Neuren Pharmaceut. 18.845 -18% 2,130,108 $2,935,317,832 WWG Wisewaygroupltd 0.05 -17% 13,530 $10,037,632 AMM Armada Metals 0.02 -17% 273,810 $4,992,000 PUA Peak Minerals Ltd 0.0025 -17% 849,475 $3,124,130 PHL Propell Holdings Ltd 0.011 -15% 956,863 $2,669,622 SHO Sportshero Ltd 0.011 -15% 263,535 $8,031,827 RSH Respiri Limited 0.023 -15% 124,844 $28,616,461 FRB Firebird Metals 0.12 -14% 247,091 $19,930,596 IS3 I Synergy Group Ltd 0.006 -14% 400,143 $2,128,563 RGS Regeneus Ltd 0.006 -14% 125,000 $2,145,058 8CO 8Common Limited 0.043 -14% 165,704 $11,204,745 CBY Canterbury Resources 0.026 -13% 72,659 $5,152,227 DGR DGR Global Ltd 0.013 -13% 234,615 $15,655,402 ZMI Zinc of Ireland NL 0.013 -13% 20,000 $3,197,164 RKT Rocketdna Ltd. 0.007 -13% 121,501 $5,248,919
TRADING HALTS
Pinnacle Investment (ASX:PNI) – pending an announcement in relation to a proposed acquisition.
Symbio Holdings (ASX:SYM) – pending the outcome of today’s court hearing, at which Symbio will seek orders of the Federal Court of Australia approving Aussie Broadband‘s 100% acquisition of Symbio.
Toys R Us (ASX:TOY) – pending release of an announcement by TOY in connection with a private placement.
The post Rise and Shine: Everything you need to know before the ASX opens appeared first on Stockhead.
