ASX Small Caps Lunch Wrap: Who got the worst kind of welcome home last week?

Local markets are down just about everywhere, except for Health Care, which is where it’s all at this morning, with a little help from the Consumer Staples sector of the market as well.

The benchmark’s down around -0.75% in the wake of another blood-letting in New York on Friday night our time, mostly because of fears that the Israel/Gaza conflict is looking likely to escalate further and drag the rest of the neighbours into the brawl.

Speaking of neighbours, it’s hard to overstate the importance of having decent ones. Nice, quiet folk that leave you alone unless absolutely necessary are my personal preference, provided that if there is some sort of issue, they’ll definitely let me know that something’s on the boil on the homestead.

Sadly, for one southwest Atlanta woman, her neighbours were a little slow on the uptake while she was out of town for a holiday.

Susan Hodgson took some much-needed time off to relax, and came home to find out that some utter bastard had demolished her house while she was gone.

Not ‘damaged it a bit’, or anything – it was literally turned into firewood in a most unscheduled and somewhat surprising manner.

Hodgson says that she was first alerted that there might be an issue with the house when a neighbour called her to ask the kind of question that would strike fear into the heart of any homeowner.

“Did you arrange for someone to knock your house down while you were gone?”

Answering the question with a tremulous “…no?”, the neighbour dropped this bombshell.

“Well, there’s someone over here who just demolished the whole house and tore it all down,” they replied, before explaining that they’d tried to stop it but were told to “mind your own business” by the wrecking crew.

(Betcha $10 that’s not a complete, direct quote).

Hodgson was able to get a family member to race over to the property, but it was little more than firewood by the time they arrived.

An argument ensued, accusations were made and paperwork was waved in various peoples’ faces – at which point it became apparent that the demolition team were, in fact, at the wrong house.

Gah!

TO MARKETS

As previously mentioned, things aren’t going so great for the ASX today, on account of all the freaking out in America over the worsening war between Israel and Gaza.

I don’t fancy weighing in on that and making a lot of people very unhappy in the process – suffice to say that the market’s view of the conflict is a little short-sighted, given that the US government is openly talking about the need to spend more on military aid (for both Israel and Ukraine), and how that will be good for America.

Speaking on Meet the Press on the weekend, Senate Minority Leader (and unofficial 5th Mutant Ninja Turtle) Mitch McConnell made it very clear that he’s okay with sending vast quantities of military aid to both conflicts – not because it’s the ‘humanitarian’ thing to do, though.

“No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine. We’re rebuilding our industrial base,” McConnell said, referring to the fact that “the Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that.”

US President Joe Biden was singing from the same hymn book on the matter over the weekend as well.

“When we use the [military aid] money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores, our own stockpile with new equipment,” Biden said.

“Equipment that defends America and is made in America. Patriot missiles for air defence batteries, made in Arizona. Artillery shells manufactured in 12 states across the country — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas. There’s so much more.”

But, I digress.

Looking at the ASX sectors this morning, and there’s a fair swathe of red that needs to be addressed – and that’s a solid form slump from both Energy and Materials, happening off the back of easing oil and gold prices over the weekend.

Speaking of which, it’s worth noting that gold’s stepped back to around US$1964/oz, and oil is down around 1.0% this morning, leaving Brent Crude at US$91.54 a barrel.

Which seems a little counterintuitive given the geopolitical situation, but it is what it is.

On a happy note, Health Care is doing quite well today. The market leader (which I’ll get to in a few minutes) hails from that sector, and there are a smattering of Big Names bucking the market trend from Health as well.

That includes CSL (ASX:CSL), which has managed to heave its considerable bulk about 0.65% higher this morning, but it’s barely a blemish against the drubbing its taken since the wheels started coming off its price in early October. And September before that. And in July before that… and the huge fall it took in mid-June.

ResMed (ASX:RMD) has also managed to pop a 2.65% news-free win this morning, which has helped lift the sector somewhat – but it’s Chimeric Therapeutics (ASX:CHM) making headlines today…

NOT THE ASX

In Japan, the Nikkei is down 0.4% as the nation mourns the death of singer-songwriter Yoshinori Monta, who shot to stardom in his home nation when his band released mega-hit Dancing All Night in April 1980, remarkable if only for the truly international flavour it has.

If you’ve ever wanted to hear what Rod Stewart sounds like after being cursed by a gypsy to only be able to sing in Japanese and joining a late 70s Costa del Sol euro-disco band where half the other members had been kicked out of the Doobie Brothers for being too mellow, now’s your chance.

What a banger.

Monta reportedly died as a result of aortic dissection, described by doctors as “an acute process in which a tear in the internal face of the aorta leads to dissection through the laminas and formation of a new lumen (false lumen) and acute drop in systemic blood pressure, potentially leading to hemopericardium and cardiac tamponade with sudden death”.

In normal person language, that translates to “his heart literally exploded”.

An absolute banger, right to the end.

In China this morning, Shanghai markets are 0.73%, and there ain’t no action in Hong Kong today because everyone there is on holidays.

ASX SMALL CAP WINNERS

Here are the best performing ASX small cap stocks for 23 October [intraday]:

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

WordPress Tables Plugin

Way, way out in front today is health tech company Chimeric Therapeutics (ASX:CHM), which is trading around 47% higher this morning off the back of some really positive news for the company, and for humanity in general.

Chimeric is reporting positive clinical data for CLTX CAR T in heavily pretreated, late stage, recurrent Glioblastoma patients in its recently-run Phase 1A trial at City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organisations in the US.

The headline news is that a “55% Disease Control Rate (DCR) was achieved in patients treated with CLTX CAR T, exceeding historical disease control rates of 20-37%” – which is a massive step forward for anyone battling brain cancer.

“Roughly 10 months’ median survival was demonstrated in patients that achieved disease control”, against survival expectations for patients after first line therapy that generally come in around the 7 months mark.

“The CLTX CAR T dose escalation preliminary data are truly encouraging and have exceeded our expectations, particularly given that the patients enrolled were heavily pretreated and very late stage,” Chimeric CEO and managing director Jennifer Chow said.

Wildcat Resources (ASX:WC8) is back in the headlines as well, this time with even more chunky lithium at its Tabba Tabba after the third batch of assays from the company’s maiden drill program came back from the lab.

The intercepts “highlight the significant scale of the Tabba Tabba Lithium Project and the potential for a Tier-1 lithium deposit at the Leia Pegmatite,” which Wildcat says is now now >1.5km long, >50m wide, >400m down plunge (250m vertical from surface), thickening at depth, and open laterally and at depth.

Meanwhile, Odyssey Gold (ASX:ODY), Syrah Resources (ASX:SYR) and Renascor Resources (ASX:RNU) are all boasting some pretty healthy gains this morning, without much in the way of real news.

ASX SMALL CAP LOSERS

Here are the most-worst performing ASX small cap stocks for 23 October [intraday]:

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

WordPress Tables Plugin

The post ASX Small Caps Lunch Wrap: Who got the worst kind of welcome home last week? appeared first on Stockhead.

therapeutics
life sciences