ASX Small Cap Lunch Wrap: Local tech stocks feast on still fresh flesh from US Fed call

We’re ahead at lunch.

Even before the dawn had cracked in Sydenham, the trading day began on a positive note when the US Federal Reserve rates comitttee emerged – a la the famed groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil – to inform the world that The Fed would be keeping US interest rates within the 5.25% to 5.5% range for a second straight month, as was widely expected.

And there was much rejoicing.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped about +0.7%, the S&P 500 climbed +1.1%, and the tech heavy Nasdaq secured an easy +1.65%.

On cue, the powerhouse growth stocks which drive America’s monstrous IT Sector began to surge.

The semiconductor giant Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) timed its run to perfection, dropping strong quarterlies and forward guidance to rise +9.7%.

LUNCHTIME ON THE ASX200

The ASX All Ords (XAO) was up +1.25% at 12.05pm and the ASX All Tech (XTX) had already left the building, up +2.6%.

In company news, Aussie Broadband (ASX:ABB) is going about its business for control of software maker Symbio Holdings (ASX:SYM) which this week received a new binding offer from ABB, and it’s no longer conditional on due diligence or financing – which was wrapped up from ABB’s earlier offer of $3.15 per share, valuing the target at about $260m.

Late Wednesday Symbio entered into a scheme of arrangement with Aussie, where shareholders would get $2.26 in cash and 0.192 Aussie Broadband shares for each Symbio share, which would mean an offer price of $3.01 per Symbio share.

Symbio’s shares last traded at $2.81.

Aussie Broadband said $435m of debt will be used to fund the deal, including a $220m revolving cash facility, a $160m acquisition facility, a $30m bridging facility and a $25m working capital facility.

The best part…

Not for American eyes:

Via ABB

As per the playbook, with the stank of the latest Fed pause still reeking in the nostrils of local traders – it was all hands on the oversold growth plays in the most rate sensitive sectors.

So step forward Messrs IT, Real Estate and anyone who lends a dime – the Big Four, and los otros Financials.

ASX SECTORS AT MIDDAY ON THURSDAY

Via MarketIndex

NOT THE ASX

Good result on The Fed decision to hold (part deux), but that’s not it this week on the Global Central Bank vs Inflation, World Series.

During the post-match press conference overnight, US Fed Chair J. Powell proclaimed that US economic activity expanded ‘at a strong pace’ in the 3rd quarter, adding that the FOMC hadn’t even discussed any cuts yet, not while the focus remains on toppy inflation and what good additional rate hikes might do.

Meanwhile in Brasília overnight, the central bank of Brazil cut its key Selic rate by 50 bps to 12.25% for the third straight time in its October meeting, as expected.

And this morning, South Korea’s CPI (consumer price index) increased by 3.8% year-on-year for October, speeding up for the third straight month and again beating forecasts (+3.6%) as the cost of life – especially energy and food – copntinued to lurch ahead.

The October CPI is Inchon’s highest reading in seven months.

At home, things hit a new central bank low of sorts, now that the Reserve Bank of Australia is getting publically schooled by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) not to mess everything up, and go hike interest rates higher.

In the Washington-based Moneybag Fund’s annual uninvited investigation into the Aussie economy, the IMF agreed that inflation was easing, but it was still too high and the new guv’nah M. Bullock ought to give it another thwack for good measure.

Bullock and her board meet on Melbourne Cup Day, next Tuesday, with pretty much everyone from economists to financial markets betting that the cash rate will be lifted by 0.25% to a 12-year high of 4.35%.

So exactly what the fund thought it might achieve by telling the RBA how to be the RBA – which has quite enough on its plate being the RBA anyway – without being called out by some smarty pants in Washington, I do not know.

WALL STREET

US stock futures moved higher Thursday morning in Sydney, ahead of the open in New York.

All the major US indices climbed strongly in the wake of the no-surprises-let’s-hold-the-phone US Federal Reserve rates policy decision overnight. In regular US trade, 9 out of the 11 S&P sectors finished higher, led by the IT Sector which climbed more than +2% as tech, comms services and discretionary consumer stocks led gains.

Here’s what big tech did with the tailwinds:

Meta Platforms (+3.5%), Tesla (+2.5%), Microsoft (+2.4%), Amazon (+3%) Nvidia (+4%) and AMD (+9.7%) had a lovely day out, while in after hours trade, DoorDash jumped 8% on an earnings beat.

AMD delivered third quarter revenue of US$5.8 billion, a gross margin of 47%, operating income of US$224 million, net income of US$299 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.18. The gross operating margin was 51%, operating income was US$1.3bn, net income was US$1.1bn and diluted earnings per share hit US$0.70.

US FUTURES circa 9.30pm, WEDNESDAY in NEW YORK

Via Fox

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for 1 November [intraday]:

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Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap GHY Gold Hydrogen 0.435 50% 1,228,348 $16,507,677 BRU Buru Energy 0.17 42% 3,553,704 $71,525,170 LLI Loyal Lithium Ltd 0.57 37% 5,149,025 $33,789,764 VRX VRX Silica Ltd 0.12 29% 604,055 $54,254,205 DCL Domacom Limited 0.014 27% 582,971 $4,790,520 PIM Pinnacle Minerals 0.18 24% 4,767,911 $3,708,375 WML Woomera Mining Ltd 0.011 22% 8,845,553 $8,605,751 TG6 TG Metals 0.4 21% 7,072,569 $13,299,509 BFC Beston Global Ltd 0.006 20% 1,603,705 $9,985,234 TAS Tasman Resources Ltd 0.006 20% 1,000 $3,563,346 AUE Aurum Resources 0.13 18% 364,897 $3,455,000 EL8 Elevate Uranium Ltd 0.45 17% 1,194,114 $106,977,694 CPM Cooper Metals 0.105 17% 40,005 $4,789,588 RNO Rhinomed Ltd 0.035 17% 3,826 $8,571,591 ATH Alterity Therap Ltd 0.007 17% 70,429 $14,639,386 ETR Entyr Limited 0.007 17% 178,571 $11,898,623 HLX Helix Resources 0.0035 17% 701,737 $6,969,438 VAL Valor Resources Ltd 0.0035 17% 2,000,000 $11,620,004 NVX Novonix Limited 0.785 16% 7,962,170 $329,811,881 CPO Culpeominerals 0.036 16% 388,425 $3,324,147 NRZ Neurizer Ltd 0.029 16% 187,997 $31,918,481 AKN Auking Mining Ltd 0.044 16% 110,598 $7,755,941 SHP South Harz Potash 0.03 15% 496,157 $18,551,165 IDT IDT Australia Ltd 0.069 15% 1,163,740 $21,088,768

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Alvo Minerals (ASX:ALV) says it has just got confirmation of ionic clay adsorption hosted mineralisation at both its Boa Vista and Sao Bento projects in Brazil, after initial metallurgical testwork from auger drill samples at the Bluebush Ionic Clay Rare Earth Project.

The heroes of the dish – initial metallurgical testwork on auger samples shows excellent extractions of rare earth elements (REE) using industry standard ammonium sulphate solution (AMSUL), as well as high-value magnet rare earths (MRE) recovery rates using weakly acidic (pH 4) AMSUL at ambient temperatures achieved the following extractions (after 30 minutes):

Neodymium (Nd): up to 89% averaging 60%.
Praseodymium (Pr): up to 86%, averaging 57%.
Dysprosium (Dy): up to 53%, averaging 37%.
Terbium (Tb): up to 69%, averaging 48%.
Total MRE (Nd,Pr,Dy +Tb): up to 83%, averaging 56%.

Bluebush is located on the northern half of the Serra Dourada granite, the same host rock of the Serra Verde Ionic Clay REE deposit believed to be the only ionic clay project currently being commissioned outside of China.

Meanwhile, Noxopharm (ASX:NOX)just continues to surge after announcing in early October that the US FDA has has granted Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) status to Noxopharm’s CRO-67 preclinical drug candidate, for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

The stock is up another 25% at lunchtime.

Also read: mRNA is the next big thing in medicine. Here’s why Noxopharm could be the ASX front runner in this field

CRO-67’s designation as an orphan drug supports the company’s development plan for the asset, and its future commercial value, as Noxopharm continues to build the data package that will be required for regulatory progression.

So far this year only two other Australian companies have received an ODD from the FDA, from a total of 260 issued.

Noxopharm followed that piece of good news with another announcement where it said that new data shows that SOF-VAC, its proprietary asset, significantly reduces mRNA-driven inflammation in animal testing.

In the animal study, inflammation was reduced by around 50% when comparing the inflammation induced by mRNA alone, versus mRNA plus SOF-VAC.

And apparently some good news at Zenith Minerals (ASX:ZNC), which reports that non-executive director Andrew Bruton and executive chair David Ledger ‘sent a notification’ to say they were out. The former ‘due to other commitments,’ the latter ‘to pursue other interests.’

Via Zenith

The market has taken this news extremely well. Up 22%.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for 1 November [intraday]:

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

Code Company Price % Volume Market Cap AXP AXP Energy 0.001 -33% 131,340,258 $8,737,021 SIT Site Group International 0.002 -33% 5,340,000 $7,807,471 PAR Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals 0.43 -28% 5,482,247 $167,788,050 ALC Alcidion Group Ltd 0.0715 -26% 7,418,501 $123,232,028 PGY Pilot Energy Ltd 0.0245 -26% 32,556,520 $34,239,401 ADS Adslot Ltd. 0.003 -25% 8,024,412 $12,897,982 CCE Carnegie Clean Energy 0.0015 -25% 861,404 $31,285,147 PUA Peak Minerals Ltd 0.003 -25% 9,248,915 $4,165,506 NGS NGS Ltd 0.01 -23% 1,101,151 $3,265,956 EG1 Evergreen Lithium 0.19 -22% 50,000 $13,776,350 MGL Magontec Limited 0.36 -21% 181,850 $35,631,297 S3N Sensore Ltd 0.091 -21% 50,500 $4,185,222 NSX NSX Limited 0.027 -21% 169,971 $13,640,734 PVE Po Valley Energy Ltd 0.036 -20% 1,567,341 $52,153,273 LBT LBT Innovations 0.004 -20% 6,157,012 $1,779,502 MRQ MRG Metals Limited 0.002 -20% 19,531,395 $5,514,797 OSL Oncosil Medical 0.008 -20% 20,000 $19,758,411 SFG Seafarms Group Ltd 0.004 -20% 50,000 $24,182,996 AMT Allegra Orthopaedics 0.04 -18% 24,489 $5,860,940 ASH Ashley Services Group 0.385 -18% 152,122 $67,668,675 MXCDA MGC Pharmaceuticals 0.83 -17% 1,520 $4,427,969 EDE Eden Inv Ltd 0.0025 -17% 13,844,574 $10,090,911 ROG Red Sky Energy. 0.005 -17% 1,884,737 $31,813,363 HMD Heramed Limited 0.046 -16% 453,428 $15,373,281

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