ASX Runners of the Week: AusQuest, Hydrix, Pentanet & Pointerra

This week we saw a potential company-making discovery in Peru for a junior copper explorer, an innovative medical firm securing a $2.8 million contract extension, a telco embracing 5G and Nvidia graphic processing unit technology and a software as a service (SaaS) company that uses artificial intelligence to develop an asset in the virtual world before turning it into reality. These make up this week’s Runners list.

AusQuest Ltd (ASX:AQD)

312pc up (from 0.8c to 3.3c)

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is AusQuest Ltd, a $10 million market-cap junior explorer hunting for copper and gold at its Cangallo project in southern Peru. The project has significant infrastructure nearby and is within 10 kilometres of the coast.

Thursday’s news of a dazzling porphyry copper-gold discovery at the project set punters’ hearts racing, with the price rocketing 300 per cent across the day from Wednesday’s close of 0.7 cents on massive turnover.

The share price opened at 1.3c after the news reveal and blasted up to a high of 2.8c on a whopping volume of more than 200 million shares traded, which is more than the total volume of shares traded over the preceding 12 months.

AusQuest’s maiden drill program at Cangallo encountered a stunningly thick intersection of 348 metres grading 0.26 per cent copper and 0.06 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, including 12m going 0.53 per cent copper and 0.27g/t gold from 252m.

Traders’ heads were also turned by a further stellar hit of 188m running 0.28 per cent copper and 0.07g/t gold from 214m depth. Porphyry discoveries such as these present bulk-scale potential.

Porphyry deposits can often comprise massive tonnage - often more than one billion tonnes of ore - in low-grade deposits that stretch from surface to deep underground and can usually be easily mined via a large open-cut operation.

Management says Peru is now the second biggest copper producer in the world, behind Chile. The bulk of Peru’s copper production comes from about 10 large projects, mainly porphyry deposits that sit along the Andean Belt and extend from Chile in the south to Ecuador in the north.

Hydrix Ltd (ASX: HYD)

190pc up (from 1.1c to 3.2c)

Diversified medical firm Hydrix Ltd roared into second place this week. The innovative company revealed a $2.8m contract extension with leading European medical device company Paul Hartmann AG.

Hydrix is working on a multi-stage product development program for the European firm. The extension represents a further stage of work, increasing an already impressive $3.7m in revenue earned from previously contracted works.

The market liked the news of the services division’s contract extension and ploughed into buying the stock, turning over an impressive 68.2m shares on Thursday, which bumped the price up to its 52-week high of 3.2c.

This compared more than favourably to Wednesday’s action, which saw a miserly 3500 shares traded for the day.

The price leap from 1c at Wednesday’s close generated a 220 per cent one-day gain for anyone lucky enough to sell at the peak.

The company is an interesting business, with a mix of divisions, including services, ventures and medical, that all have a specialised focus.

The services division is described as the company’s secret sauce, with the creation of world-first innovative products for its med-tech clients. The ventures arm invests into some of its services division clients, taking an equity stake in firms with promising technology, including several ASX-listed firms.

Hydrix’ medical division sells a range of new-age cardiac health products, which the company hopes will disrupt the sector, such as an AI-driven cardiac remote monitoring device and a machine-learning implanted device that provides 24/7 monitoring of a patient’s heart, giving alerts in real-time for distressing events such as silent heart attacks.

Pentanet Ltd (ASX : 5GG)

Up 106pc (from 2.9c to 6c)

Cloud-gaming and 5G telco firm Pentanet Ltd nabbed third spot this week after revealing improved financial metrics in the company’s second quarter investor update. The improvements to revenue, gross profit and its first positive quarterly earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $600,000 caught the market’s ever-wandering eye.

The news on Wednesday morning sent punters scrambling for stock and buying up big. An astonishing 48m shares changed hands on the day, which was the company’s biggest trading volume in a single day since March last year. The price touched a nine-month high of 6c during the trading frenzy, before closing the session at 5c.

A solid 8.3m shares were traded the following day as the price retreated slightly.

Pentanet has several strategic goals, including to substantially expand its 5G coverage before launching a competitive offering to the market when it has built sufficient scale. It upgraded 14 of its towers to 5G, with plans to complete an additional five in the second half of the year.

Management says that when the company has sufficient coverage for 5G’s ultrafast capabilities, its strategy is to own and operate the largest deployment of Nvidia graphic processing units in the country.

The company also believes its high-performance cloud-based gaming platform will attract sufficient gamers in numbers to evolve into a profitable operation.

The second quarter update pointed to a 27 per cent uplift in gaming revenue quarter-on-quarter, which it aims to continue to build on.

Pointerra Ltd (ASX : 3DP)

Up 100pc (from 5c to 10c)

Innovative AI software firm Pointerra Ltd missed out on a podium finish but still rocketed in for a solid fourth placing. The company released its second quarter activities and cash flow report on Monday, which showed increases to its customer receipts and cashflow between October and December.

Pointerra last week revealed a $2m contract extension by the US Department of Energy, which is another positive for the up-and-coming digital twin solution provider. A digital twin is the best digital replication of a physical asset in the virtual world that includes its behaviour, features and functionality.

Market participants liked the figures and tech-speak and began dreaming of how best to twin their cash balance. They pumped up the share volumes on the day to a staggering 56.7m, pushing the company’s share price to touch a five-month high of 7.4c.

A whopping 55.9m shares were traded the following day, extending the price higher to reach a new 52-week high of 9.6c.

Friday’s trading saw the price move further to a peak of 10c on continuing solid volumes.

Management says its Pointerra3D SaaS AI product offers the world’s fastest true end-to-end digital twin solution. It plans to monetise the SaaS product via a cloud-based subscription model and believes it can help customers answer almost any question about a physical, real-world asset they are seeking to plan, design or construct.

The US contract extension will see the software used for hurricane response and grid resiliency, enabling the department to become better equipped for emergency response events.

Ford Motor Company is said to develop seven digital twins of each vehicle model it produces, with each twin covering different aspects of the design stage, manufacturing process, production facilities and customer experience.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au