ASX gains 1pc, ends at new record high<\/p>\n
All sectors in the green<\/p>\n
Mako Gold leads out the small caps<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Local markets have risen on Wednesday with some aplomb. It\u2019s the eighth straight daily gain for the Aussie stock market with a new record to take home.<\/p>\n
At 4.15pm on 31 Jan, the S&P\/ASX200 was ahead 88.50 points or 1.06% to\u00a0 a new record high of 7,680.70.<\/p>\n
Via Google<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
By lunchtime in Sydney, the benchmark hit a new all-time high of 7682.30 points after the CPI data dropped, before ending at a record close.<\/p>\n
Over the past four weeks, the XJO has gained about 0.1%, and in the last year, it\u2019s up 1.5%.<\/p>\n
All 11 sectors were higher.<\/p>\n
Via MarketIndex<\/p>\n
The McAussie consumer price index rose 4.1% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, slower than the 5.4% recorded last time and coming in under the 4.3% forecast.<\/p>\n
The bureau of stats\u2019 monthly CPI read also eased off to 3.4% in December from 4.3% in November, missing market expectations of 3.7%.<\/p>\n
The Reserve Bank of Australia is widely expected to hold rates steady at next week\u2019s first meet of 2024, with local markets pricing in a 70% chance of a rate cut in June and are fully priced in for a cutty-cut move in August.<\/p>\n
HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham says the CPI will make the RBA comfy with an economy \u201cmoving in the right direction\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s numbers also provided even more evidence that further rate hikes are not on the cards \u2013 consistent with the view we have held for some time now.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, rate cuts may still be quite some time away.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the States\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Overnight, the Dow rose 0.35% to clock a new record high, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite lost 0.06% and 0.76%, respectively.<\/p>\n Microsoft beat Wall Street estimates for Q2 revenue on Tuesday, as new AI features helped attract customers to its cloud and Windows services.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Microsoft shares were little changed even as the firm reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue.\u00a0 Microsoft beat Wall Street estimates for Q2 revenue on Tuesday, as new AI features helped attract customers to its cloud and Windows services.<\/p>\n In after market action, Google-daddy Alphabet\u2019s\u00a0 Q4 revenue best expectations on Tuesday, as advertising spending rose and demand for cloud services grew from companies attracted by its artificial intelligence tools. Alphabet tumbled 5.5% as the Google-parent\u2019s ad revenue came in short of analysts\u2019 expectations. AMD also plunged 6% after issuing a weak revenue forecast for the current quarter.<\/p>\n Revenue for the quarter stood at US$86.31 billion, stealing past estimates of $85.33bn.<\/p>\n Shares in Supermicro (SMCI) \u2013 one of the best-performing US stocks over the last 12 months \u2013 have spiked overnight, being a less headline yet quiet beneficiary of the AI boom.<\/p>\n SMCI makes high-density servers and storage equipment and its training AI models excel at fast response times and handling large volumes of data.<\/p>\n Supermicro said revenue jumped 103% in the quarter to $3.66 billion, well ahead of analyst consensus at $3.06 billion and beating original guidance of US$2.7 to $2.9 billion.<\/p>\n We\u2019re watching Elon..<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The Tesla CEO Elon Musk\u2019s US$56bn remuneration package just got binned by a judge in Delaware, prompting Elon to\u00a0 go the full Donald on Delaware \u2013 \u2018Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware\u2019 \u2013 he X\u2019d in anger.<\/p>\n Tesla\u2019s agreement with Musk is by far the largest compensation ever provided to an executive and is a major factor in making him one of the world\u2019s wealthiest individuals. It allows Musk to buy Tesla stock at heavily discounted prices as escalating financial and operational goals are met \u2013 though it requires him to hold the acquired stock for five years.<\/p>\n Musk qualified for all 12 tranches, or performance targets, in the compensation plan and wasn\u2019t guaranteed any salary.<\/p>\n The multi-hatted CEO billionaire also says the first human to get his company Neuralink\u2019s cybernetic implant is recovering well from going cyborg.<\/p>\n After an open recruitment for the first-in-human clinical trial of its wireless brain-computer interface (BCI),\u00a0Neuralink says the Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface (PRIME) study would evaluate the safety of the company\u2019s implant (N1) and surgical robot (R1), while assessing whether the device can help paralysed people control external devices with their thoughts. Which I can already do, BTW.<\/p>\n On Sunday, the first implant was placed in a human.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well,\u201d Musk X\u2019d the other day. \u201cInitial results show promising neuron spike detection.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n US Futures were mixed in Sydney at 4pm on Tuesday.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Via Fox<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile in China\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Equities in Hong Kong\u00a0 have been dashed for a second session with all sectors were lower at 3pm in Sydney.<\/p>\n Needless to say, sentiment is all but spent after the January official manufacturing PMIs in China dropped. Okay. They\u2019re less bad, but still bad \u2013 and still in contraction anyway.<\/p>\n That\u2019s now 4 straight month of contraction in factory activity, with new orders, foreign sales, and employment all falling.<\/p>\n Concerns over the lack of stupendous shaped stimulus out of Beijing suggests to traders of the state\u2019s reluctance to just get in there and boost confidence and capital markets with a hefty kick of fiscal spending .<\/p>\n Meantime, worries about the property blackhole across China remain front of mind \u2013 who knows how the liquidation of property giant China Evergrande Group will play out. I do not.<\/p>\n \u00a0Around the hood\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Asian-Pacific markets were mostly lower in the arvo on Wednesday \u2013 everyone has their own key economic data to swallow \u2013 while also keeping an eye on the US Federal Reserve tonight.<\/p>\n The Nikkei 225 Index dropped 0.8% to below 35,800 on Wednesday, snapping a two-day advance, as Japanese tech\u00a0 tracked their US peers lower, under pressure amid one or two unsettling quarterly reports out of Mega tech land in the US.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Today\u2019s best performing small cap stocks:<\/p>\n Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:<\/p>\n WordPress Table Plugin<\/a><\/p>\n The Small Caps winners list today had Mako Gold (ASX:MKG)<\/span><\/a> at the top of the ladder, after posting an activities report and balance sheets to the market today that investors decided was all really good news.<\/p>\n The short version is that things are progressing well for the company, particularly at its flagship Napi\u00e9 Gold Project in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, where low-cost exploration work is continuing.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the company has progressed its due diligence ahead of a proposed accretive transaction with Goldridge, that would see Mako consolidate its holdings and create a district scale gold play in the area.<\/p>\n There were, as always it seems, a couple of small caps making big moves for mysterious reasons \u2013 and today, that included both Iris Metals (ASX:IR1)<\/span><\/a> (+22.7%) and Cleo Diagnostics (ASX:COV)<\/span><\/a> (+21.4%), and neither of them having fresh news to pin it on.<\/p>\n Delorean (ASX:DEL)<\/a><\/span> made headway this morning after the company handed in its report card for the quarter, with news that its focus on project delivery is enabling it to \u201creturn to growth and profitability\u201d \u2013 plus, it\u2019s got close to $5 million smackers in the bank, and investors like that kind of thing a lot.<\/p>\n And last but not least, game makers PlaySide Studios (ASX:PLY)<\/span><\/a> has reported record quarterly revenue of $20.7 million, a 106% jump on PCP, and well ahead of the prior quarterly total of $15.5 million.<\/p>\n The company also reported a record Original IP revenue of $11.1 million, +245% against the same period last year, and a 41% jump to another record, this time in Work for Hire revenue totalling $9.6 million.<\/p>\n Investors were mashing their controllers as fast as their crusty old thumbs could manage, and Playside was up 20% before lunch.<\/p>\n ActivePort Group (ASX:ATV)<\/a><\/span> rose on the back of a solid quarterly, which reported the company had managed to boost revenue from operations by 7% to $3.73 million from Q1, and is boasting positive operating cashflow up $1.30 million, after the company accepted its R&D refund for FY23, taking net cash and equivalents up in the quarter from $1.66 million at the end of Q1 to $2.58 million at the end of Q2.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s best performing small cap stocks:<\/p>\n Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort:<\/p>\n WordPress Table Plugin<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Spartan Resources has dug deep \u2013\u00a0really deep \u2013 to confirm that mineralisation at its Never Never deposit maintains good widths and grades at depth, reporting its deepest assay to date: 16.65m @ 10.29g\/t gold from a downhole depth of 625.83m<\/span><\/a>, driving further belief that the once-mothballed Dalgaranga Project is actually a viable concern.<\/p>\n Galan Lithium plans to undertake a non-underwritten share purchase plan offer of $1.5m to existing shareholders for ongoing development costs and resource work, supplementing the recently completed $18 million raise for Phase 1 construction activities at the Hombre Muerto West<\/span><\/a> lithium brine project in Argentina.<\/p>\n Latin Resources has made a third major spodumene discovery along the highly prospective Salinas lithium corridor in Brazil<\/span><\/a>, boosting the already fabulous Salinas project beyond its most recent upgrade which saw Latin\u2019s resource grow by 56% in early December last year.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Haranga Resources keeps on improving its inventory of uranium anomalies at the Saraya project in Senegal, as the company keeps going with its unusual exploration method that involves sampling termite mounds<\/span><\/a> to find evidence of yellowcake or other minerals carried to the surface by the critters.<\/p>\n Remaining assay results from Phase 3 drilling at Prospect Resources\u2019 (ASX:PSC)<\/span><\/a> Step Aside lithium project in Zimbabwe have extended the depth and strike continuity of mineralisation at the WinBin discovery<\/span><\/a>, adding weight to the theory that Step Aside could be within the same mineralised system as the 72.7Mt Arcadia project, which it sold to Huayou Cobalt in mid-2022 for about US$422m in cash.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Imricor Medical Systems (ASX:IMR)<\/a><\/span> \u2013 pending an announcement in relation to a proposed capital raising.<\/p>\n Conrad Asia Energy (ASX:CRD)<\/a><\/span> \u2013 pending an announcement to the market in relation to a capital raising.<\/p>\n Vertex Minerals (ASX:VTX)<\/a><\/span> \u2013 pending release of an announcement by the Company in relation to a proposed capital raising.<\/p>\n Singular Health Group (ASX:SHG)<\/a><\/span> \u2013 pending an announcement in respect of a material purchase order received.<\/p>\n Centrex Metals (ASX:CXM)<\/a><\/span> \u2013 ending the release of an announcement regarding a capital raising.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The post Closing Bell: We have a wonderful new record on the ASX200<\/a> appeared first on Stockhead<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASX SMALL CAP LEADERS<\/h2>\n
ASX SMALL CAP LAGGARDS<\/h2>\n
In Case You Missed It\u00a0\u00a0<\/h2>\n
TRADING HALTS<\/h2>\n