Four ASX shares that are not letting that hold them back are listed below. Here's why they are rising:

Insignia Financial Ltd (ASX: IFL)

The Insignia Financial share price is up 2% to $4.12. This financial services company's shares have raced higher this week after it received a confidential, non-binding, and indicative proposal from CC Capital Partners. It offered $4.30 cash per share, which represents a 21.4% premium to its last close price. It is also a 7.5% premium to an offer from Bain Capital that was rejected by the Insignia Financial last month. However, there is speculation that the latter could return with an improved offer in the near future.

Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX: RIO)

The Rio Tinto share price is up almost 2% to $118.46. This may have been driven by a broker note out of Goldman Sachs this morning. According to the note, the broker has reaffirmed its buy rating on the mining giant's shares with an improved price target of $147.80 (from $135.10). This increased price target reflects "lowered AUD, iron ore, copper & aluminium prices slightly for 2025, lowered copper TC/RCs. Lifted long run gold price. Incorporated Rincon and Winu projects." Based on its current share price, this new price target implies potential upside of approximately 25% for investors over the next 12 months.

St Barbara Ltd (ASX: SBM)

The St Barbara share price is up 6% to 26.5 cents. This follows another rise in the gold price overnight which is giving gold miners a boost today. So much so, the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold index is defying the market weakness with a 0.35% gain at the time of writing. In addition, with St Barbara's shares being sold off recently, some bargain hunting could be happening today.

Structural Monitoring Systems plc (ASX: SMN)

The Structural Monitoring Systems share price is up over 2% to 48.5 cents. This morning, this avionic products developer announced a binding commitment to raise up to approximately $1.337 million through a single tranche placement from New York-based hedge fund Drake Private Investments. These funds will be raised a premium of 52 cents per share. Though, every four shares issued includes three attaching options that are exercisable at 78 cents per share. CEO Ross Love commented: "We welcome this significant additional investment from Drake and take it as reflecting their growing confidence in the Company's achievements over recent quarters and the positive outlook ahead."

The post Why Insignia, Rio Tinto, St Barbara, and Structural Monitoring shares are rising today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Amid the downward pressure, one ASX share is shining above the rest today and is now trading 60% higher in the morning session.

Shares in Structural Monitoring Systems PLC (ASX: SMN) have exploded out of the gates today after being in a trading halt since 21 January. They're now fetching $1.09 apiece.

Investors are responding positively to a company announcement this morning regarding usage approval for its CVM [comparative vacuum monitoring] Sensor technology.

Why's this ASX share charging so hard today?

Market pundits are piling into the company today after it advised the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted authority to issue Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) approval for its CVM Sensor technology.

Structural Monitoring says the technology is now approved on the B737-800 Intelsat (Gogo) Wi-Fi antenna support structure inspection.

According to the company, the approval marks an incredible milestone in the world of aviation and is poised to make flying potentially safer for us all. This approval marks an extraordinary milestone in aviation history, the first-ever world regulatory agency approved sensor technology validated and certified for detecting critical structural cracks on aircraft.

"The certification of CVM sensors to detect cracks on aircraft is expected to meaningfully impact the
industry maintenance inspection methods," the announcement said.

"Inspections can be performed more routinely, plus the sensor eliminates the need to remove ceiling panels and pneumatic ducting to gain access for various safety checks."

In fact, Structural Monitoring says that inspections using the technology can be performed "at the gate during a turn-around in approximately 30 minutes, as opposed to taking the aircraft to the hangar to perform the inspections".

The company says it will now be putting its efforts into getting the technology ready and able for as many airline fleets as possible.

"Now that SMS has an FAA certified product available on the market, our team will be assessing all factors related to the current airline operating environment," it said.

"This includes current aircraft fleet compositions, aircraft utilisation information and other factors which airlines rely upon to assess their cost benefit analysis for use of CVM technology."

As a result, investors are seeing green today, sending shares north of 60% higher on a volume of more than 1,000% higher than the company's 4-week trading average.

Management commentary

Speaking on the announcement, the company's head of business development and marketing executive vice president Rich Poutier said:

This industry-first approval of SMS's structural health monitoring technology granted by the FAA is validation of the tremendous efforts put forth by the entire team. We are excited to pave the way and expand the commercial market with our highly innovative CVM sensor technology.

How has this ASX share performed?

In the last 12 months, the Structural Management Systems share price has soared more than 166% and it is also up 79% this year to date.

As a result of the gain seen on the back of today's announcement today, the company is now trading at its 52-week high as well.

During the past month of trading alone, shares have surged more than 86% and, it's safe to say, SMS is now comfortably outperforming the benchmark index so far in 2022.

The post Little-known ASX share explodes 60% on 'breakthrough' US certification appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

What were the results

The announcement by Structural Monitoring Systems included information about the unaudited financial performance of wholly owned subsidiary, AEM. It also included an update about the approval process underway for the company's new technologies.

AEM's full year 2020 normalised earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation were approximately $4.4 million. This represents a 24.6% increase on financial year 2019. 

Full year sales for the 2020 financial year were $18.96 million, which is a 10.7% increase on the 2019 financial year.

Structural Monitoring Systems, the parent entity, reported a cash balance of $2.113 million at the end of the financial year.

The announcement stated: "The 2020 revenue and profitability achieved by AEM is a remarkable accomplishment particularly in light of the unprecedented challenges present in the global aviation market together with the operating impact imposed by COVID-19 on holistic commercial platforms."

Structural Monitoring Systems reported that AEM will continue to work on developing new generation product solutions that are primarily focused on rotorcraft markets, with R&D spending increasing from 10% of sales to 13% of sales. According to the announcement, AEM will continue to add to its pipeline of new products under development and will target several of the largest global original equipment manufacturers around the world.

The company reported that AEM's sales for the first quarter of the new financial year were already strong and higher than the same time last year.

The company's CVM technology, which involves sensors placed at strategic locations on an aircraft to detect cracks, moved closer to commercialisation with testing commencing in the coming month. This supervised testing will move the technology closer to gaining approval from the American Federal Aviation Administration.

Structural Monitoring Systems also reported that its 2ku wifi program, which allows flight passengers access to internet much faster than usual in flight internet speeds, is also on schedule toward gaining approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

About the Structural Monitoring Systems share price

Structural Monitoring Systems develops and manufactures aviation-related technology that has seen demand from airlines around the world. Recent announcements suggest that the process of gaining government approval for the company's new technologies has been tracking according to schedule.

The Structural Monitoring Systems share price is up 155% from its 52 week low of $0.235 cents, however, it is down 40% since the beginning of the year. The Structural Monitoring Systems share price is down 9.77% since this time last year.

The post Structural Monitoring Systems share price up 20% after releasing unaudited FY20 results last week appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Yesterday its shares were higher by as much as 14% before giving back these gains. In late trade yesterday its shares are up almost 2.5% to $1.85.

Why have its shares climbed higher today?

The company announced a 10-year Aircraft Component Purchase agreement with US airline giant Delta Air Lines.

The agreement is the world's first commercial agreement related to the supply and permitted use of a structural health monitoring technology with a commercial airline operator.

The announcement is certainly great news for the company and could be the start of much greater things if all goes to plan.

For a more detailed description of the technology have a read of this.

The post Why Structural Monitoring Systems plc shares soared on Delta Air Lines deal appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

The falling gold price and the uncertainty of what might happen to the global economy once President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20, 2017 appear to be major drivers of the market at the moment.

That hasn't helped these six stocks, which have seen their share prices tumble in the past week.

Source: S&P Global Markets Intelligence, Google Finance

Karoon Gas fell 22% yesterday, with legal action filed against oil giant Petrobras over the sale of two major oil stakes to Karoon Gas. We covered the issue in more detail here.

Structural Monitoring Systems hasn't released any market sensitive news in the past week, and it may just be that traders and investors have lost faith in the company that makes sensors for aircraft.

Alkane Resources, a gold miner, has been hit by the falling gold price, with the share price hammered on Monday. Despite revenues of $110 million in FY2016, Alkane only managed to produce a net profit before tax of $6.7 million.

Integral Diagnostics, a diagnostic imaging company, reported last week that it expects its first half of FY2017 earnings to be ~10% lower than the previous year.

iSentia Group has run into trouble with its acquisition of King Content, which is now losing cash and reported that its first-half earnings would be lower than the previous years.

CSG, the print and technology solutions business also reported that it expected to see lower earnings for the first half of FY2017, but investors don't appear convinced the company can achieve its stated full year forecast and another earnings downgrade may be coming.

Mobile Embrace also lowered earnings guidance, but investors may be fearful that the factors affecting the downgrade are beyond management's control, and therefore could occur at any time, with wide-ranging ramifications.

Foolish takeaway

Despite the share price falls, none of the above companies looks like a bargain buy. Investors might want to watch their stories unfold from the sidelines.

The post These 6 stocks have dropped more than 18% in the past week appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Sure, some are highly speculative – and several could easily end up losing their shareholders all of their current gains.

But when you consider the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) index has returned just 1.7% over the past three years (since October 21, 2013), 1,000% returns – or more than ten times the initial price are truly astonishing.

If you include dividends reinvested over that time, the Index return becomes 16.2% in total – not a great return at all.

Source: S&P Global Markets Intelligence, Google Finance

Some of these companies are in hot sectors, but a number also have some very exciting new technology.

Pilbara Minerals and Neometals are lithium companies benefitting from the surging demand for the product for use in rechargeable batteries – not just in mobile phones but growing electric car manufacturing.

Magnis operates in the equally hot graphite sector – hence its share price soaring.

Structural Monitoring Systems has benefitted from the increased demand for real-time monitoring of the structural integrity in products like airplanes, bridges, pipelines and buildings. The company has first-mover advantage and a huge market, although is still loss-making.

Resapp Health wants to develop smartphone apps to diagnose and manage respiratory disease. While it sounds promising, the company is still undergoing trials for its products. 3 years ago, Resapp was called Narhex Life Sciences and was looking at moving into the resources space.

Agrimin has also transformed – from a company called Global Resources Corporation three years ago, into a potash miner in July 2014. Potash is one of the main ingredients in fertilizer – expected to see almost as much demand in future as lithium.

Cardinal Resources is a gold explorer in Ghana, Africa and investors appear excited by the company's deposits.

Eden Energy is using carbon nanotubes to form a concrete admixture that means concrete doesn't need steel reinforcing added to it. Tests so far suggest Eden's product is far superior to standard concrete in many ways.

Eureka Group has profited by moving into aged care and development and management of retirement villages, and is steadily growing its business with big tailwinds behind it.

Egg and egg products supplier Farm Pride has had a strong couple of years thanks to consistent growing profits – mostly by substantially reducing its production costs.

Dacian Gold has profited from the recovery in the gold price of the past few years as well as progressing its 100% owned Mount Morgans Gold Project.

Red River benefitted from the demise of Kagara Ltd, picking up the Thalanga zinc operations from the administrator for just $6.5 million in July 2014. The company is working to restart operations within the next 12 months.

Foolish takeaway

It seems clear that each of the companies listed above have exciting developments on the go. Whether they will all be successful is another questions though and not easily answered. My three tips for a closer look would Eden Energy, Farm Pride and Eureka Group.

The post These 12 stocks have seen gains of more than 1,000% in the past 3 years appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Doing their fair share of the heavy lifting have been four shares in particular. Each has produced a strong finish to the week, much to the delight of their respective shareholders. Here's why they climbed higher:

BlueScope Steel Limited (ASX: BSL) shares are up over 5% to $8.26 following the release of an earnings update late in the day yesterday. BlueScope reported that preliminary unaudited underlying EBIT for the year ended 30 June 2016 is expected to be around $570 million following a strong second half. Higher margins across its international businesses, as well as a turnaround in Asian steel prices were largely to thank for the strong result.

BlueScope Steel shares are up over 12% in the last two trading days.

Senetas Corporation Limited (ASX: SEN) shareholders will be smiling this weekend after its share price rocketed 33% higher to 12 cents. Today's gain comes on the back of a positive update which revealed that it expects full year net profit before tax to be between $6.8 million and $7.1 million, beating its previous guidance by between 36% and 42%. The high assurance encryption hardware manufacturer will report its full year earnings on August 26.

Senetas shares are still down by 33% so far in 2016, despite today's gains.

Structural Monitoring Systems plc (ASX: SMN) shares are higher by almost 6% to $1.89 after it announced a major update with one of the world's leading aviation original equipment manufacturers. As well as this news the company reported that Boeing has approved its technology for the centre wing box application employed in its Delta/Boeing programme. This now allows all 737-NG operators worldwide to use its comparative vacuum monitoring sensors to replace existing ground-based, time intensive inspection protocols.

Structural Monitoring Systems shares are up over 435% in the last 12 months.

Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX: WHC) shares jumped nearly 13% higher to $1.66 after the coal miner reported record coal production for the 2016 financial year. The company revealed full year production was 20.5 million tonnes, which was a 30% increase on the previous year. The coal miner stated that it sold 20.1 million tonnes of coal in FY 2016, an increase of 44% year on year. Of these sales 84% was thermal coal and the remaining 16% was metallurgical coal.

Whitehaven Coal's share price is up a massive 123% in the last three months.

The post Why these 4 ASX shares rocketed today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

As its name implies, Perth-based Structural Monitoring Systems is involved in the development of technology that can detect early stage metal fatigue.

A lot of progress is being made by the company, but it is still at a testing stage for some of its products and thus it may be too soon to invest on this news. The company expects that pre-requisite approvals from the domestic aerospace regulator will be finalised in Q1 2017, followed shortly after by critical FAA approval. This is essentially a formality given the bilateral agreements in place between all the major global aviation regulators.

As well as this news, the company also reported that Boeing has completed the administrative process of formally approving the CVM for the centre wing box application employed in its Delta/Boeing programme.

This means a modified Boeing service bulletin that includes the use of CVM to conduct the health monitoring of the wing box components has been issued. This now allows all 737-NG operators worldwide to use CVM sensors to replace existing ground-based, time intensive inspection protocols.

Whilst it may be a little premature to make an investment today, I feel it is definitely worth adding to your watch list. If this technology is adopted en masse by operators then I believe the company could experience explosive growth.

But until there is proof that operators are seeing value in it, I would suggest holding off an investment. Instead shares such as Sydney Airport Holdings Ltd (ASX: SYD) and Auckland International Airport Ltd (ASX: AIA) could be alternative options for investors right now.

The post Why Structural Monitoring Systems plc shares rocketed 13% today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Weak leads from overseas markets on Friday, some large stocks going ex-dividend and some weak economic data appear to be weighing on the index.

Despite the index's lacklustre performance, here are four stocks that are soaring today …

Structural Monitoring Systems plc (ASX: SMN) is up 16% at 54.5 cents. The company has developed a technology that can detect early stage metal fatigue, as is primarily focused on the aircraft market, but could also have applications for any large metal and fibre resin composite structures or products, including bridges, power generation systems and land and sea transportation systems. SMS released its full year report today, and while revenues are still small, a number of partnerships with airlines could prove fruitful in the years ahead.

Nanosonics Ltd (ASX: NAN) shares are up 11% at $1.01. The company develops products for disinfecting ultrasound probes and last week reported a 44% jump in operating revenue. As we mentioned in July, "this could be the start of something very exciting". It's fairly high risk, and has yet to report a profit. If that's not your cup of tea, you might want to keep reading to the bottom of the article.

Unilife Corporation (ASX: UNS) has seen its shares climb 8.7% to 50 cents. Unilife develops injectable drug systems, and says it expects to release a number of new products this financial year. Last week Unilife reported a 436% increase in revenues for the 2014 financial year, although it still reported a loss. Unilife could be another stock you may want to add to your watchlist.

Clearview Wealth Ltd (ASX: CVW) shares have added 9.1% to 96 cents today. Clearview is an independent financial services company providing wealth management and life insurance services. Last week Clearview announced 23% growth in full year net profit to $19.7 million as well as a merger with independent financial adviser Matrix Holdings, for a cost of ~$20 million. That's small change for Clearview, but adds further scale to its business.

The post 4 stocks soaring on the ASX today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.