I see red, I see red, I see red… The ASX has this month taken a tumble from the intoxicating all-time highs of Valentine’s Day. In three weeks, the index shed more than 6 per cent of its value, with all sectors except telecommunications and the unstoppable goldies losing ground this week.
Energy stocks fared the worst as oil prices fell on a double threat of ‘The Don’s’ trade tariffs and increased OPEC oil production.
Mineral Resources’ troubles continued and company founder Chris Ellison lost his billionaire status after MinRes shed nearly 40 per cent off its share price this month.
A weakening iron ore price held most of our major miners down - except gold - with uncertainty around China’s bleak construction sector scaring traders. Though a spark of hope crossed traders’ screens on Thursday morning when BHP shares shot out of the blocks at the open to rise 6 per cent on a seemingly flat day for the other majors.
BHP’s share price surged from $39.50 to $42 a share at the open, before it became apparent its share price appreciation was not driven by its performance or market speculation. Instead, one trader, who had perhaps forgotten their morning coffee, ordered 750,000 BHP shares at $42 a share pre-market, rather than the intended 750 units. A costly $31.5m ‘fat finger’ mistake which saw BHP’s share price soar and then pull back some $2.60 per share in under two minutes, hypothetically costing the company millions.
As you can expect in this increasingly stale market, candidates for Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runners of the Week list were relatively few and far between, however, a few diamonds in the rough sparkled in an otherwise uneventful week.
Industrial Minerals Ltd (ASX: IND)
92% up (from 12c to 23c)
Industrial Minerals is this week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week. On a quiet week with not much happening, the quartz crusader leapt out of the blocks with no news to its name – and still bagged a premier podium finish.
The company’s stock began its run on Tuesday, marching from 12 cents per share to 16c before it was handed a “speeding ticket” by the ASX.
Industrial’s management said they were unaware of any unknown information, however, noted global tariff and trade developments were juicing demand for its high purity quartz.
The free marketing did the trick as the company’s share price surged up the following morning to a high of 23c, up 92 per cent from its close of 12c the week prior.
Industrial is busy working on several projects and has released plenty of tasty tidbits in its recent quarterly activities report, including encouraging feedback from parties interested in its Pippingarra pegmatite project in Western Australia, a China marketing blitz and progress on a maiden mineral resource estimate at Pippingarra due by the end of March.
The company also touted its ongoing test work in China and a freshly funded war chest from a placement and share purchase plan, which it says has enabled meaningful progress towards development and achieving its aim of becoming a key supplier to the high purity quartz materials sector.
With United States’ president Donald Trump’s tariff sabre-rattling in the background, high-purity quartz looks likely to become another critical mineral darling to join a trend of raging antimony and gallium prices.
Litchfield Minerals Ltd (ASX: LMS)
90% up (from 9.5c to 18c)
Litchfield Minerals took out second place on this week’s Runner of the Week list. The base metals company released some juicy news to the market on Wednesday that it had uncovered two big, high-intensity sulphide-bearing targets over 1 kilometre at its cornerstone Oonagalabi project in the mineral-rich heart of the Northern Territory.
Litchfield said a recently conducted pole-dipole IP survey had uncovered two massive chargeability anomalies stretching 1km in strike and plunging to more than 500m in depth.
The company’s shares ran on the news on Wednesday and its share price peaked at 18c per share on Thursday, up some 90 per cent from last week’s close, after well over $1m of stock traded hands.
Litchfield says each target possesses a higher-grade core, with chargeability exceeding 40 to 60 millivolts per volt. The promising base metals targets were not drill-tested, offering highly compelling targets for Litchfield’s upcoming drilling program.
Historical drill holes at Oonagalabi have glanced the chargeability shell and returned the best mineralisation numbers to date, reinforcing the strong correlation between chargeability and sulphide mineralisation.
The company has locked in a phase one drilling program for late March, pending a final Territory government nod. Oonagalabi’s 3km mineralised strike in the Territory’s mineral-rich heartland has the hallmarks of a big base metal system tied to some hydrothermal action.
No wonder the market was frothing – this untested high-grade core could be a game-changer for the sub-$5m market cap minnow, as copper demand remains solid despite most metals pulling back.
InFocus Group (ASX: IFG)
73% up (from 1.5c to 2.6c)
Ditching the pickaxe for the pixels, Runners’ final podium finish goes to fintech group InFocus, which saw its share price shoot up on news of its latest stablecoin payment project with the Seychelles-based group, GBO Assets.
InFocus says it has sealed a US$1.52 million (A$2.41m) deal with GBO to build a cross-border stablecoin payment platform, bumping its total GBO contract haul to more than US$4m (A$6.35m), hot on the heels of a US$2.5m (A$4m) gaming gig.
InFocus jumped to 2.6c per share on Tuesday’s company announcement, up 73 per cent from its close of 1.5c last Friday after $2m of the stock was traded.
GBO Assets, based out of the tech and tax-savvy Seychelles islands, has worked with some of the world’s largest gaming organisations that run physical casinos and online platforms.
InFocus will design and develop a full-featured cross-border cryptocurrency payment system with AI-powered liquidity pools, real-time analytics, and exchange rate wizardry, which is set for delivery in the next two years.
InFocus’ chief executive officer Ken Tovich believes the deal proves the company has supercharged its tech-chops with a newly enlarged team following its Prodigy9 acquisition earlier this year.
InFocus’ market cap is still well below the net worth of its deals with GBO and just yesterday secured a further $250,000 of funding to service its contracts. It could well be a high-growth tech provider on the up.
TG Metals Ltd (ASX: TG6)
71% up (from 10.5c to 18c)
It wouldn’t feel right to have a Bulls N’ Bears Runners of the Week list without a regimented goldie given the price was at all-time highs again this week.
TG Metals’ latest Van Husen project near Marvel Loch, outside Southern Cross in Western Australia. Credit: File
TG Metals rode the yellow metal’s $4650 per ounce wave that made Cyclone Alfred’s swell look positively puny. The company’s share price flew up on Thursday after it announced the acquisition of an 80 per cent interest in the Van Uden gold project in WA.
“The Goat” blasted to a peak of 18c per share from a close last week of 10.5c, which was a 71 per cent rise on $110,000 in shares traded for the day.
The Van Uden treasure chest consists of four promising mining leases and an existing resource of 5.3 million tonnes grading 1.38 grams per tonne gold for 238,000 ounces of gold.
The company says the project was previously explored by Convergent Minerals and the Wesfarmers-acquired Kidman Resources to define shallow gold mineralisation at its Gold City deposit.
Very little progress was made on the project under Kidman’s ownership, as the company’s focus shifted to the massive Mt Holland lithium deposit, which inevitably made it a takeover target.
TG6 managed to snap up the Van Uden project for just $2.5m cash and $1m in shares - plus a deferred $0.5m kicker. The existing mining leases’ existing stockpiles and shallow gold make for an attractive toll treating option to generate some serious cash in the current gold environment.
Sitting pretty near Marvel Loch and TG6’s Lake Johnston lithium digs, the “near-term cash flow” gem still has plenty of exploration upside that could be soon self-funded, the company says. In a market this red-hot, gold’s glitter was TG6’s gain.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
