LAST ORDERS: A heartwarming folk tune called ‘The Wednesday that just happened to us, the ASX and everyone else’

Come gather ’round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone…

Hump Day is drawing to a close, which means times really are changing, just not the way Bob and those damn hippies wanted. Instead we’re all clear to lie on the earth of our forebears, in front of a home-warming pot-belly stove, listening to the gentle folk and crackle of the firewood while we sip brandy and discuss the things that grown-ups love to talk about.

For example, the news.

So here goes…

FROM THE HEADLIONS

A short burst of excitement for people in and around Sydney’s Taronga Zoo this morning, when a “Code One” was called and the facility went into lockdown after five (no, really… five!!) lions escaped from their enclosure.

Sources inside the zoo say that the breakout had been months in the planning, with three lions tasked with preparing “zookeeper disguises” made from discarded zookeeper parts, and two others tasked with stealing a ferry to hasten the animals’ escape to the Sydney CBD.

The plan unravelled when a lion cub was hit with a tranquiliser dart, and blabbed to the cops to try to get a more lenient sentence.

In the world of social media, Twitter is just the story that keeps on giving, after hugely famous author Stephen King baulked at the prospect of being asked to pay $20 a month to keep the little blue tick next to his name on the platform.

“F- – – that,” King said, before bluntly pointing out that Twitter should instead be paying him to appear on its platform, prompting super-responsible CEO Elon Musk to reveal the enormity of his negotiation skills by suggesting the author of Carrie, The Shining and IT pay $8 per month instead. Oh, the horror.

Musk also griped about the need for Twitter to be able to pay the bills, which should be substantially lower if Musk lives up to recent media speculation that 25% of the platform’s workforce will be laid off, forcing them into sending their CVs around to other large tech firms, 140 characters at a time.

As it stands, Musk is facing an uphill battle to charge its high-profile users a monthly fee to make sure that they aren’t going to be impersonated by trolls, bots or even the fearsome trollbots, capable of tearing off a man’s thumbs from more than 10-feet away and leaving them unable to Tweet forever.

And an update from YeWatch2022: Kanye West’s has managed to last four whole days on Instagram before his account was suspended again.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

But it’s also still pretty funny.

FROM THE MARKETS

Carbon Revolution (ASX:CBR) has had to call time on things ASX-wise for the foreseeable future, following on from its announcement to market a few days ago of a plan to merge with a US SPAC and list on a US exchange.

The announcement arrived on the local lists on 31 October as part of the company’s quarterly, and CBR was trading way, way up by lunchtime, when spanners started to fly.

At 12:38pm, CBR was paused and by 3:02pm, trading was halted – but not before the company was showing a 77% uptick for the day.

There’s obviously been some to-ing and fro-ing between CBR and the ASX since, and the company is now entering a full-on suspension from quotation “pending the release of a supplementary announcement by Carbon Revolution in response to ASX queries”.

The timeline on that being ready is itself a little unclear, with CBR “currently unsure when it will be in a position to lodge the supplementary announcement”, adding that “it may not be until Carbon Revolution has signed the binding agreements in relation to the Proposed Transaction which is expected to be by late November 2022”.

Until then, it’s a case of hurry-up-and-wait.

And I am beginning to suspect that there might be a new kid at the ASX who’s getting all eagle-eyed over every little thing in the past few weeks, because today’s seen yet another stock rocketing up the charts, only to have the brakes tugged on my mid-afternoon.

This time, it’s Winsome Resources (ASX:WR1) … for the second time in less than a week.

As mentioned earlier today, On 28 October, Winsome announced that “160m of Pegmatite” had been “collectively intercepted” at its Adina project in Canada, hidden away under the recently discovered, well mineralised Jamar outcrop – and WR1 rose in price.

That is, until trade was paused and it became clear that there was something amiss. Winsome put out another release retracting this section of the initial announcement: “Diamond drill core samples from Adina show the pegmatites to be consistent with previously reported surface mineralisation.” And on 29 October, WR1 fell in price.

Then, late-ish last night, Winsome put out another announcement, this time including some tables that it was supposed to have included right from the beginning of this story, which made investors happy again – and this morning, WR1 rose in price by 41.3%. Before lunchtime.

And at 1:04pm, the ASX hit the pause button, causing another burst of gainus interruptus for investors. If anything shakes loose before the market closes today, we’ll let you know. Otherwise, tune in tomorrow for the next exciting instalment of  the hit ASX game show Let’s Keep Stopping Just When Things Are Looking Good!

… yeah, I spoke too soon. At 2:38pm, WR1 was placed in a trading halt, the ASX has issued a “Please Explain” price query and I’m beginning to worry that someone, somewhere has misplaced their copy of “How to Announce Stuff”.

And in much briefer news, Pantoro (ASX:PNR) has finished up its drilling program, comprising 20,000 metres at its Lamboo PGE deposit, with results due to come in the near future.

Meanwhile, Carly Holdings Limited (ASX:CL8) has today issued total of 88,048,413 fully paid ordinary shares and 44,024,187 quoted options exercisable at $0.06 each (with an expiry date of 31 October 2024), raising $2.1 million before costs.

TRADING HALTS

Taruga Minerals (ASX:TAR) – Capital raise.

Tombola Gold (ASX:TBA) – Capital raise.

Winsome Resources (ASX:WR1) – See above.

That’s it. That’s the list – 3 of them. And with that, we’ve earned our biscuit for the afternoon, so we’re out.

Enjoy your night, and remember: never forget.

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