Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Monday

Wall Street weakens, Square to acquire Afterpay

All three US benchmarks fell on Friday, as earnings results kept coming in.

The Dow Jones fell bty 0.42%, S&P 500 by 0.54%, and tech heavy Nasdaq by 0.71%.

Amazon fell shorts of analysts’ estimates in Q2, and fell by 7.5%.

In a surprise move, Jack Dorsey’s NYSE-listed Square will acquire Afterpay for $126.61 or US$29bn (A$39bn).

“Square and Afterpay have a shared purpose. Together, we can better connect our Cash App and Seller ecosystems to deliver even more compelling products and services for merchants and consumers, putting the power back in their hands,” said Dorsey, CEO of Square.

Afterpay closed Friday at $96.66 for a $28bn market cap.

To cryptos, where Bitcoin is trading higher at US$41,100 level at 8:00am AEST, from the US$39,700 level on Friday.

Ethereum meanwhile, turned six on Saturday.

There’s plenty of excitement building around Ethereum’s protocol at present, and for good reason considering its improvement upgrade – to be released this week if all goes according to plan.

ASX 200 set to open lower on Monday

The ASX 200 looks set to open modestly lower his morning, with futures markets (September contracts) pointing down by 0.07% at 8:30am AEST.

On Friday, the benchmark index closed 0.40% lower, but was flat for the week. The mining sector was the clear winner in a week where earning results headlined proceedings, up by 3.4%.

Afterpay (ASX:APT) also reported its earnings this morning, with underlying sales rising by 102% over the last 12 months.

Meanwhile, Oil Search (ASX:OSH) said it has received an improved offer from Santos (ASX:STO) for an implied price of $4.52 per Oil Search share, and has now given access for Santos to conduct due diligence.

OSH closed at $3.81 on Friday.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Nexion Group (ASX:NNG)
The cloud tech company has taken the helm of Aryaka in Australia and New Zealand as Principal Partner, to accelerate Aryaka’s managed SD-WAN and SASE deployments. This will add additional channels and enterprise customers under the joint agreement as well as SASE (secure access service edge) for Nexion.

Aspermont (ASX:ASP)
The media services company announced that its gross profit in Q3 grew by 22% to $2.8m, with gross margins expanding from 58% to 65% compared to the previous corresponding period (pcp).

Creso Pharma (ASX:CPH)
The cannabis company said its last quarter revenue increased by 18% on pcp to $1,633,000. Most of the revenue was made by Mernova, its subdisidary in Canada.

Hastings Tech Metals (ASX:HAS)
The rare earths explorer has received a conditional approval from the WA government to construct the Yangibana Rare Earth Project’s hydrometallurgical plant in the Ashburton North Strategic Industrial Area (ANSIA), just outside of Onslow. ANSIA is home to Chevron’s Wheatstone and BHP’s Macedon gas projects.

Moho Resources (ASX:MOH)
The company said it was awarded $200,00 CEI (collaborative exploration initiative) grant by the Queensland government to follow up hydro-geochemical anomalies at Empress Springs. The geochemical drilling program is scheduled for Q4 21.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Nexion Group and Creso Pharma are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.