If you were looking for correlation between the seemingly continuous breakouts of military hostilities between nuclear-armed nations and the market - good luck.
The ASX continued at near all-time highs this week, pulling back a fraction by Friday, as conflict between Iran and Israel continued to rise.
The oil price surged a further 10 per cent this week as Israel turned its focus from Iran’s nuclear facilities to targeting its oil and gas infrastructure.
Uranium stocks were the week’s main winners. Surprisingly, they were not fuelled directly by global drivers, but rather by investment heavyweight Sprott’s physical uranium trust purchase of $200 million worth of uranium oxide, which was announced on Monday.
The result for uranium stocks on the index was deafening. Uranium miners Boss Energy, Paladin Energy and Deep Yellow were among the most heavily shorted on the ASX, making up three of the top 10 shorted companies. A sharp increase in uranium caused a two-fold effect of en masse buying and short seller panic to close out positions, with the big three uranium stocks all surging up 20 per cent on the day.
In a rare shake-up, no Australian-based resource companies feature on this week’s Bulls N’ Bears’ ASX Runners list. Instead, the chocolates went to a groundbreaking Aussie biotech story, which could be on to the makings of one of the biggest breakthroughs in oncology treatment in years.
AMPLIA THERAPEUTICS (ASX: ATX)
Up 339% (5.7c – 25c)
This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week is biotech trailblazer Amplia Therapeutics, which sent the market into an absolute tailspin thanks to a jaw-dropping set of results from a clinical trial for incredibly nasty pancreatic cancer.
On Monday, the company announced a pathological complete response – no detectable signs of cancer - in a patient enrolled in its ACCENT trial of a drug therapy to limit tumour growth.
The trial combined the therapy narmafotinib with two other drugs to treat a patient with metastatic (stage IV) pancreatic cancer. After surgery, the patient’s primary and metastatic tumours showed no live cancer cells, a unicorn-rare outcome in this brutal disease, where no detectable cancer signs are less common than a sunny day in Melbourne.
The market mumbled and murmured through Wednesday, then stacked 42 per cent onto Amplia’s share price.
Thursday brought a different tune: a second patient, out of 55 enrolled in the trial, achieved a confirmed complete response, with all tumour lesions vanishing for more than two months.
In advanced pancreatic cancer, where one complete response in 431 patients is headline-worthy, two in a trial appears groundbreaking.
The market lost its collective marbles and the company’s shares rocketed to 25 cents per share – up 339 per cent - on Friday with more than $30 million in shares traded on the week. The move also delivered a handy little profit for Amplia’s second largest shareholder Acorn Capital, which picked up a further $350,000 worth of shares on Monday, when it saw value before the broader market.
Pancreatic cancer is Australia’s eighth most common cancer and has a dismal 12.5 per cent five-year survival rate. With United States Food and Drug Administration registration already in the bag, Amplia’s drug looks to be on the charge to transform oncology, especially as healthcare systems globally grapple with rising cancer burdens and demand for precision therapies.
ARCHTIS LTD (ASX: AR9)
Up 287% (6.2c – 24c)
Taking out silver on this week’s Runners list is cybersecurity expert archTIS Limited, which saw its share price catapult 390 per cent by Wednesday, before the ASX killjoys slammed it into suspension, ending any hopes the company could take out the coveted Bulls N’ Bears podium.
The company released a duo of blockbuster defence contracts on Monday and Wednesday, before archTIS’ management rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s cybersecurity elite. On Monday, the company unveiled a US Defence Department contract for 1000 licences for its NC Protect data security software, worth $38,500 a pop for six months, to lock down sensitive data in Microsoft’s DoD365 cloud.
After months of brutal testing by the prime global contractor, NC Protect came up trumps as the only integrated solution for robust, scalable attribute-based access control. ArchTIS says its product could address a potential 150,000-user rollout across the warfighter network, if it proves a success for the defence department.
Amazingly, $100,000 worth of shares traded on Monday, before going supersonic on Tuesday, to push the company’s share price up 100 per cent from last week’s close on $600,000 shares traded.
ArchTIS dropped a second bomb on Wednesday, announcing a three-year $263,185 deal for 400 users with a United Kingdom-based aerospace and defence titan, which is poised to be a blueprint for more than 100,000 potential users in a global Microsoft 365 rollout.
The company’s share price hit a peak of 24c for a gain of 287 per cent this week, on $1.4 million in intraday trading, before the compliance overlords at the ASX cried “disorderly market” and placed the company into suspension, where it remains.
It’s likely a few day traders were caught flat-footed by the suspension and were no doubt scouring around to come up with the cash to settle on trades they had hoped to flip by market close on Wednesday.
In a world where cyberattacks are spiking, archTIS’ NC Protect could fulfil a crucial defence need. Its ability to secure sensitive communications in cloud environments, such as the DoD365 and Microsoft 365 platforms, is critical as nations race to shield their military and industrial data from state-sponsored threats.
With geopolitical tensions boiling and the US and UK doubling down on cybersecurity to protect their defence industrial bases, archTIS’ tech is perfectly timed to cash in on the global push for ironclad digital fortresses, making it a potential darling in the market and of Western military alliances.
Vanadium-rich magnetite outcrop at Vanadium Resources’ Steelpoortdrift behemoth project in South Africa, which could be shipping ore to China by December this year. Credit: File.
VANADIUM RESOURCES LTD (ASX: VR8)
Up 185% (1.3c – 3.7c)
Snagging the final spot on the Runners of the Week podium is the aptly named critical minerals developer Vanadium Resources, which shot out of a cannon on Tuesday, after inking a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China Precious Asia (CPA).
Vanadium will supply 1.2 million tonnes per annum of vanadium-rich magnetite direct shipping ore to the heavyweight global metals trader from its world-class Steelpoortdrift vanadium project in South Africa.
The MoU positions Vanadium to tap into early cash flows at the fully permitted Steelpoortdrift, a behemoth resource with 680 million tonnes of ore at 0.70 per cent vanadium oxide, which is equivalent to 4.74Mt contained vanadium. That rate is enough to keep the company’s lights on for more than 180 years.
CPA will handle loading and collection of the direct shipping ore, with Vanadium retaining a nimble ±25 per cent supply flexibility each month, kicking off by December this year.
Management believes the material positive operating cash flows will fast track its development, with good reason. Steelpoortdrift’s vanadium-rich ore also brims with iron-rich magnetite, making it a dual-treat commodity in the Asian steel market.
The news sent the company’s long-beleaguered share price soaring a cheeky 185 per cent from last Friday’s 1.3c close to a 3.7c peak on $230,000 in stock traded.
Vanadium is also actively sniffing out profit-share deals and acquisitions to bolster its near-term game plan without derailing the direct shipping ore opportunity. The deal looks beneficial for both parties as vanadium supplies are projected to be in global deficit this year, coupled with China’s ambitions to diversify from its dependence on Australian-based iron ore.
Steelpoortdrift’s high-grade, low-cost direct shipping option has reignited global and now market interest in the company. If Vanadium can lock in a binding agreement with CPA, this plucky minnow could vault into the vanadium big league and potentially self-fund its own mine development.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Andrew Todd
