Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Friday

Wall Street snaps three-day gain streak

All three US stock market indexes fell last night, and snapped their streak of gains in the previous three days.

The Dow Jones fell by 0.54%, S&P500 by 0.58%, and the tech heavy Nasdaq by 0.64%.

Focus for the market is still on the virtual Jackson Hole meeting of central bankers, with comments due later tonight. The decision on whether to taper the bond buying program is high on the agenda.

There were also news reports that the biggest contract chipmaker, Taiwan’s TSMC, would raise prices by as much as 20%.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration was thrown into turmoil as 12 US servicemen (amongst others) were killed in a bomb attack at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

In other markets, the spot iron ore price rose by 2.5% to US$153.35, while oil prices dropped by around 1.5%.

In cryptos, the market is falling across the board.

Bitcoin has fallen to US$47,300 level at 8:00am AEST, from the US$49,100 level on Thursday.

Other coins in the top 10 suffering the biggest 24-hour losses include Polkadot (DOT) -5.81%; Dogecoin (DOGE) -5.77%; Cardano (ADA) -5.21%; and XRP -5.18%.

ASX 200 to open lower on Friday

The ASX 200 looks set to open lower his morning, with futures markets (September contracts) pointing lower by 0.54% at 8:30am AEST.

Yesterday, the Ausssie benchmark finished 0.54% lower.

Recently listed Kuniko (ASX:KNI) jumped by another 150% yesterday, after its 300% spectacular rise on Tuesday’s debut.

In large caps news this morning, Wesfarmers (ASX:WES) posted a 40% increase in net profit to $2.38 billion, and declared a full year dividend of $.178 a share, plus a $2 special dividend.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Immutep (ASX:IMM)
The immuno-oncology company announced a patent grant in China for LAG525 and its compositions. LAG525 is a humanised form of Immutep’s IMP701 antibody which is out-licensed to Novartis.

MGC Pharma (ASX:MXC)
The cannabis-based biotech company has executed a 3-year supply deal with US-based AMC Holdings to market MGC’s products including CannEpil, CogniCann, and CimtrA. The deal obliges AMC to make a minimum purchase order of $24m over the initial 3-year period.

Dusk Group (ASX:DSK)
The home fragrance specialist announced record sales and earnings. Its total sales grew by 47% to $148.6m, for a pro-forma EBIT of $38.4m which is 225% higher than last year.

Auswide Bank (ASX:ABA)
The bank posted record growth with a statutory NPAT of $24.155m, up 30.5% on FY20. This was supported by an increase in net interest margins of 200 basis points, up 3 basis points from FY20.

Beamtree Holdings (ASX:BMT)
The healthcare company reported its strongest revenue to date, with 109% growth to $8.9m for the full year. Growth in the year was driven by strong sales momentum generated by major new Australian client wins, and new major international contracts.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While MGC Pharma is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.