Last Orders: What you might have missed on the ASX today

Small caps have fallen, along with the broader Australian share market.

The Small Ordinaries index finished Wednesday down 30.0 points, or 0.96 per cent, to 3,103.7, slightly outperforming the ASX200 which dropped 74.8 points, or 1.12 per cent.

Every sector was down except for energy, which rose 1.6 per cent, and utilities, which dropped 0.2 per cent.

Tech stocks were battered the most, falling 3.5 per cent as Afterpay slid 4.5 per cent to $113.56. Health care dropped 2.3 per cent.

Elementos (ASX:ELT) was one of the biggest gainers, rising 37.5 per cent to 1.1c after the Queensland junior explorer reported progress in early drilling at its flagship Oropesa tin project in Spain.

In cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin surged by 12 per cent to smash through its all-time high of $US35,000 in early afternoon trading, and was sitting at $35,161 at 5.09pm AEDT.

In Australia, it broke its all-time high of $45,500 on Sydney exchange the Independent Reserve in mid-afternoon trading, and was changing hands at $45,256 at 5.12pm.

Elsewhere on the ASX:

Announcements

– PayGroup (ASX:PYG) rose 13.5 per cent to 67.5c after the cloud-based HR company announced that it has taken in $8.2 million in new contract sales so far from April through December, triple that of the same period in 2019.

– Buddy Technologies (ASX:BUD) was flat at 5c after the Wi-Fi enabled light company announced it had closed a $20 million loan from San Francisco-based Partners for Growth, for the purposes in part of refinancing its debt.

– Noxopharm (ASX:NOX) gained 17.4 per cent to 54c after the clinical-stage pharmaceutical company announced it was confident its lead drug candidate, Veyonda, could revolutionize cancer treatments. In a shareholder update, Noxopharm said it sees 2021 as the year in which growing industry interest begins to be converted into partnering discussions.

– SenSen (ASX:SNS) dropped 2.9 per cent to 17c after the smart cities company raised $7.2 million in an institutional placement at 12.5c a share, a 9.3 per cent discount.