ASX 200 rises on the back of health and tech as ASX small caps enjoy a good day out

Now, that’s how you get the morning started - after investors filled their coffee cups, they also filled a few coffers. The S&P/ASX 200 rose by 0.56% to hit a new peak of 7,630.60, with tech and health stocks leading the way. Over the last five days, the ASX 200 has gained 1.22% and is currently just 0.01% off of its 52-week high. The top-performing stocks in ASX 200 are Star Entertainment Group Ltd which is up 5.67% (at time of writing) and may be benefitting from Queensland’s eased restrictions, and Premier Investments Limited, up 5.05%.  Why is Premier up? The man behind Premier Investments is none other than billionaire Solomon Lew, who, as we reported yesterday, is attempting to spill Myer’s board and stop the retailer from diluting Premier’s holding. Speculation abounds that Myer Holdings Ltd (down 2.52% today) is planning to issue shares to a major supplier at 30 cents a share – a claim Myer strenuously denies. Premier Investment lawyers Arnold Bloch Leibler sent Myer’s lawyers at Clayton Utz a letter on Wednesday, saying “Premier can only interpret Myer’s steps to seek a capital raising as a bad faith attempt by Myer to stifle Premier’s advocacy for changes to Myer’s board and to interfere with Premier’s proposal to reconstitute the Myer board with a new independent chair and a majority of independent directors.  “Premier will take all steps within its power to prevent any attempt to dilute and disempower Premier through a capital raise.” In this very bitter spat, Premier has accused Myer of wasting corporate resources, when it should be fixing Myer’s chronic prolonged underperformance. Perhaps, Premier’s performance today reflects Premier’s stand in the matter, considering no material news was released. China impacting mining stocks China’s resolve to reduce the impact of the steel industry on the environment is having ramifications for Australia’s mining stocks.  So far this morning, BHP Group Ltd was down 1.4% to $52.23, Rio Tinto Limited dropped 1.3% to $118.69, Fortescue Metals Group (ASX:FMG) Limited fell 1.1% to $22.28 and Mineral Resources Limited (ASX:MIN) was 0.3% lower at $59.75. Iron ore was down 1.5% to US$162.96 a tonne overnight and is likely to continue its decline given China’s current stand. Iron ore is Australia’s biggest export and China our biggest customer. China is attempting to lower its emissions by keeping steel production to below one billion tonnes.   This has weakened steel and iron ore demand, a trend that is likely to continue in the second half of the year. On small cap front Gainers today on the small cap front include Emyria Ltd (ASX:EMD), up 7.8% after it announced a contract with a leading North American drug manufacturer, Lithium Australia NL (ASX:LIT, OTC:LMMFF, FRA:3MW) up 3.4% following the announcement that its 90%-owned subsidiary Envirostream Australia Pty Ltd has filed two International Patent Applications with the Australia Patent office, and Global Energy Ventures Ltd (ASX:GEV) which has welcomed Province Resources Ltd’s progress across the HyEnergy Project, after earlier this week inking an MoU with Province and Total Eren to undertake a feasibility study on the export of green hydrogen from the proposed plant. The S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries is up 0.34% to 3,519.60.