At lunchtime today, the S&P/ASX 300 (Index: ^AXKO) (ASX: XKO) had climbed 1.3%, as expectations build that the European Central Bank (ECB) will unleash a quantitative easing program this week.
It's not all good news of course, oil stocks are being hammered after oil prices slumped overnight.
These five companies have very little to do with oil, and their shares are soaring today. Here's our view…
Senetas Corporation Limited (ASX: SEN) has rocketed up 25.5% to 6.9 cents, after the developer of data encryption hardware announced that it expects to report a profit of double the amount advised to the market in November 2014. For the six months to December 2014, Senetas is forecasting a net profit before tax of between $2.5 million and $2.8 million, compared to the $1.3 million advised earlier.
Gold miner Saracen Mineral Holdings Limited (ASX: SAR) had jumped 12.7% to 40 cents. Likewise, two smaller gold miners, Alkane Resources Limited (ASX: ALK) and Phoenix Gold Ltd (ASX: PXG) put on gains of 8.9% and 12.5% respectively. And it's mostly due to the rising gold price.
Overnight, spot gold gained 1.4% to hit US$1,293.02 an ounce or the equivalent of A$1,585.6 an ounce. For Australian gold miners, such as Saracen, with all-in production costs of between $1,000 and $1,200 an ounce, which means they are making a gross profit of more than $300 an ounce. Saracen has hedged its gold production with 185,000 ounces at an average price of A$1,539 an ounce, giving it substantial protection, should the gold price collapse.
Alkane also announced today that it had discovered a new zone of gold-copper mineralisation at its Duke Prospect.
Prima BioMed Limited (ASX: PRR) was up 6.1% to 3.5 cents, after the company announced yesterday that it had received $777,000 as a cash rebate from the Australian Federal government's R&D tax incentive program. Prima is researching and developing immunotherapeutic products for the treatment of cancer. In December last year, the company announced that it had initiated a Phase 2 clinical trial for pancreatic cancer patients in remission.
