Market highlights and 5 ASX small caps to watch on Friday

Wall Street climbs on Biden stimulus

All three major US benchmarks rose on Thursday, as President Biden announced a US$579 billion stimulus.

The Dow Jones rose by 0.95%, S&P 500 by 0.58%, and tech-heavy Nasdaq hit another record, rising by 0.69%.

The half-a-trillion dollar stimulus includes spending on power grids, broadband internet services, and the rail network.

In stocks, Nike earnings have beaten estimate, and its share price rose by 5 per cent after hours.

Meanwhile, official DNA tests have proven that Subway’s tuna sandwiches actually contain no tuna at all.

The privately-owned retail fast food company is currently facing a class-action lawsuit that alleged it engaged in deceptive marketing, and has now announced a settlement.

In other markets, Bitcoin is trading at US$34,600 level at 8am AEST, from the US$33,400 level on Thursday.

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) has urged central banks around the world to develop their own digital currencies, saying that cryptocurrencies are posing a problem to the world’s financial system. The BIS is a central bank for central banks.

ASX retreated again

The ASX 200 fell by 0.32 per cent on Thursday, due to a steep drop in the last hour of trading.

The bourse was almost at parity just before 3pm, but a sell-off in the last hour saw the ASX 200 close at 7,275, which was 0.32 per cent lower than Wednesday.

According to the latest ASX data, three new companies are set to make their IPO debut listing today: Torque Metals (ASX:TOR) and Arcadia Minerals (ASX:AM7), and WAM Strategic (ASX:WAR).

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Medibio (ASX:MEB)
The mental health company has selected R&CPMK, the preeminent US-based marketing and communications agency to drive brand development and strategic communications for the upcoming launch of Medibio’s patented pioneering consumer mental health app in the US.

Proteomics (ASX:PIQ)
The company said that research shows testing for diabetic kidney disease with its PromarkerD prognostic blood test could save US taxpayers almost US$400 billion over 10 years. The company said its ground-breaking PromarkerD test is the only test capable of predicting the onset of diabetic kidney disease in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Southern Cross Media (ASX:SXL)
The company has reached a deal with Network 10 to broadcast channels 10, 10 Bold, 10 Peach and 10 Shake in regional Qld, NSW, and Vic for two years. SXL said the agreement will enable it to optimise the strategic and commercial position of its television business in the evolving free-to-air television market.

Bigtincan (ASX:BTH)
The AI-powered marketing tech company has completed its acquisition of Vidinoti, a Swiss-based company in AR/VR technology. Vidinoti has developed a comprehensive suite of tools to create, deploy and manage augmented reality content including V-Director, V-Player and the Vidinoti SDK.

Australian Mines (ASX:AUZ)
The company said that positive results delivered by its research project with Deakin University in relation to the development of a new scandium-aluminium alloys warrants the project progressing to the next phase, which includes commercial trials. Scandium-aluminium alloys are known to exceed the properties of pure aluminium for key process in the energy industry.