The ASX is tracking a little higher today, despite having the wind knocked out of its sails a little when Jim Chalmers delivered his Mid\u2011Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) report, which briefly set the market tumbling mid-morning.<\/p>\n
But it got better. Mostly.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll get into the details shortly, but first some news out of the United States of America, the nation whose lawmakers have unwittingly set themselves up for a very un-merry Christmas.<\/p>\n
The Iowa State Capitol is home to some pretty excitable representatives, who have found themselves backed into a pretty uncomfortable corner.<\/p>\n
A portion of the building was set aside to allow for the display of Christmas decorations \u2013\u00a0a chance for the more religious members of the state legislature to promote their brand of Christianity to the masses, despite the concept flying very close to the whole \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d bone that\u2019s in the US Constitution.<\/p>\n
When asked if that was open to any religiion, and not just Christianity, the state representatives hands were forced \u2013 they couldn\u2019t, after all, claim that their decorations were okay, but those of any other religions weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
So, in the spirit of inclusion, The Satanic Temple turned up and put their statue of Baphomet on full display \u2013 and everybody has lost their minds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s abhorrent to see something like a display like this. It\u2019s a travesty, to see in our Capitol I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s allowed to be here,\u201d Pastor Joel Tenney with Alpha Pneuma Ministries told local media.<\/p>\n
Ho ho ho.<\/p>\n
Iowa\u2019s not alone in dealing with what is rapidly turning into a massive own goal.<\/p>\n
The National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin, traditionally holds a similar exhibition each year, celebrating the festive decorations of different churches and faiths at this time of year.<\/p>\n
The Satanic Temple has its own tree on display there this year, and local Republican Senator Mike Gallagher is not happy about it\u2026 no sir, not one little bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to overstate how offensive this is to Christians. It would be, in quite a literal sense, the same thing as waving a Hamas flag inside of a synagogue,\u201d he told Fox News, ruining pretty much any chance he has of ensuring that Satan will come down his chimney on Christmas Eve this year.<\/p>\n
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The ASX was rising at a modest \u2013 dare I say it, sedate \u2013 pace this morning after a lukewarm lead in from Wall Street overnight, while local investors picked away at a couple of fast movers when the doors came open and the rest of the market waited for Aussie Treasurer Jim Chalmers to deliver the Mid\u2011Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a quick-glance look at which way the needle was moving for the benchmark this morning \u2013 see if you can spot the moment when Chalmers started flapping his gums.<\/p>\n
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Chart via Marketindex.com.au<\/p>\n
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Despite the optics, it wasn\u2019t all bad news.<\/p>\n
Real wages are stagnating, the cost of living keeps rising, global conflicts \u2013 particularly those in Gaza and Ukraine \u2013 are giving everyone the willies and China\u2019s economy being backed up worse than an octogenarian with a prune allergy\u2026<\/p>\n
But, Chalmers did point out that \u201cthere are substantial risks to the economic outlook\u201d \u2026 which is also pretty bad.<\/p>\n
I have no doubt that someone a lot smarter than me will be along shortly to provide some much better insight into what the Mid\u2011Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook actually means \u2013 it\u2019s well beyond my \u201cI dropped out of Year 9 Economics because my teacher hit me with a cricket bat\u201d education level to digest and regurgitate it in full this morning.<\/p>\n
So \u2013 let\u2019s settle on \u201cChalmers momentarily tanked the benchmark, but it got better\u201d and leave it at that.<\/p>\n
Looking at the sectors, Health Care is out in front \u2013 no doubt the proposed Sigma merger to allow Chemist Warehouse to stealth its way onto the ASX has a lot to do with that this morning \u2013 and Materials is doing pretty well, thanks to a couple of days of solid exploration results.<\/p>\n
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Chart via Marketindex.com.au<\/p>\n
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But\u2026 Energy is the issue \u2013\u00a0the sector is once again on the receiving end of a profoundly enthusiastic kicking, after oil prices slid quite markedly overnight, thanks to oversupply concerns and China\u2019s statuesque economic outlook.<\/p>\n
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Local markets were set to open flat this morning, after a session on Wall Street overnight that left the S&P 500 up by +0.38%, the blue chips Dow Jones index up by +0.43% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq up as well, by +0.60%.<\/p>\n
US investors weren\u2019t really in a spending mood, it seems, after fresh data showed that while the US inflation rate slipped to 3.1% in November from 3.2% the previous month, the closely watched Core Inflation (sme thing, but without counting food and energy costs) rose 0.3% in the same period.<\/p>\n
The wider reasoning suggests that these are the sort of numbers that will shore up intellectual support for the US Fed to start taking\u00a0 chainsaw to interest rates sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2024.<\/p>\n
However, Earlybird Eddy Sunarto reports that one expert has warned that investors should not be overconfident the Fed will cut rates soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cInflation remains sticky. The Fed will not want to take the risk of pivoting on policy too soon by cutting rates,\u201d said Nigel Green of deVere Group.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that the data is still not strong enough for the central bank of the world\u2019s largest economy to commit to reversing its most aggressive tightening campaign in decades \u2013 yet the markets seem ready to confidently and heavily price-in rate cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
In US stock news, Alphabet fell -0.66% after Google lost a monopoly case to Fortnite maker, Epic Games.<\/p>\n
Epic Games sued Google in 2020, accusing it of unlawfully making its app store dominant over rivals, and now jurors in San Francisco agreed with Epic and found that the search giant had operated an illegal monopoly.<\/p>\n
Speaking after the verdict, Google affairs and public policy VP Wilson White said the company plans to appeal the verdict and that \u201cthe trial made clear that we compete fiercely with Apple and its App Store, as well as app stores on Android devices and gaming consoles.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Epic responded by saying \u201cskill issue\u201d, and teabagging Google\u2019s legal team until he was booted from the server.<\/p>\n
Computer maker HP Inc fell -0.43% after Berkshire Hathaway cut its holding in the stock by half. Berkshire had held 5.2% of HP on November 30.<\/p>\n
In Asian market news, Japan\u2019s Nikkei is up 0.63%, Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng is down 0.38% and Shanghai markets are currently flat, but that will almost definitely change.<\/p>\n
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Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for 13 December [intraday]:<\/strong><\/p>\n Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n WordPress Tables Plugin<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Leading the market today is Healthcare large capper Sigma Healthcare, which has gone flying this morning on news of a multi-billion dollar merger being put together to allow retail behemoth Chemist Warehouse to backdoor list on the ASX.<\/p>\n The actual news from Sigma this morning was only tangentially related to that merger, as it was all about the completion of a fully underwritten 1 for 1.85 pro-rata accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer to raise approximately $400 million.<\/p>\n Sigma CEO Vikesh Ramsunder said that the offer had been well-supported, and that Sigma plans to use the funds raised on increased working capital requirements and progress business growth initiatives, including relaunching Sigma\u2019s Amcal and Discount Drug Store brands and expanding the company\u2019s \u201cprivate and exclusive label\u201d product range.<\/p>\n Ramsunder also said that, in the event the proposed merger does go ahead, \u201csome of the net proceeds from the Entitlement Offer may instead be used to partially fund the cash consideration by Sigma under the Proposed Merger\u201d. So there\u2019s that.<\/p>\n In second place today is small explorer Koonenberry Gold, which is celebrating a win this morning with an announcement featuring two words investors love to read: \u201cvisible gold\u201d.<\/p>\n Drilling at the company\u2019s the Bellagio gold prospect has hit widespread quartz veins below the weathered zone, containing visible gold down dip from the Koonenberry\u2019s previously reported intercept of 10m @ 1.61g\/t Au, which \u2013 just so we\u2019re clear \u2013\u00a0did not have any visible gold.<\/p>\n \u201cBelow the strongly weathered zone, quartz veins are associated with sericite-silica hydrothermal alteration and trace arsenopyrite over a +125m wide zone,\u201d KNB says.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is significant as sericite-silica alteration is a common feature of many orogenic gold systems\u201d \u2013\u00a0orogenic referring to the crumple zone that makes mountain ranges when two tectonic plates collide.<\/p>\n I looked it up, so that you didn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n And the third stock worth a mention in the winner\u2019s list for today is American West, which is on the rise after revealing that it is sitting on the only known domestic indium resource in the United States.<\/p>\n Indium is one of those rare critical minerals that most people have never heard of, but without which they wouldn\u2019t be able to play Candy Crush or send shockingly lewd Tinder messages to each other, as it\u2019s a pretty important element in the manufacture of things like mobile phones and emojis.<\/p>\n AW1\u2019s indium resource isn\u2019t just unique in terms of its geological placement, but also pretty big \u2013 the company is reporting a JORC compliant resource of some 23.8Moz of indium at the site, nestled cheek-by-jowl with an equally impressive total of 119Koz of gold, 1.3Mt zinc, 49Kt copper and 10Moz silver.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for 4 December [intraday]:<\/strong><\/p>\n Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n WordPress Tables Plugin<\/a><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The post ASX Small Caps Lunch Wrap: Whose Christmas celebrations took a very dark turn this week?<\/a> appeared first on Stockhead<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS<\/strong><\/h2>\n