Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Monday

Wall Street at fresh highs as US jobs rise

US stocks closed the week at record highs on Friday, as the US economy added 531,000 jobs in October, compared to 312,000 in September.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq set their sixth consecutive day of new record highs in a row – up by 0.37% and 0.20% respectively, while the Dow Jones was also up by 0.56%.

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin has lost its lawsuit against NASA, ending a six-month legal battle.

Blue Origin had earlier claimed in court that NASA’s decision to award a US$2.9bn contract to Space-X was “unfair” and demonstrated favuoritism towards Elon Musk’s owned SpaceX.

Pfizer shares were up 11% on Friday after date revealed that its new pill could reduce the risk of death or hospitalisation in COVID-19 patients by up to 89% if taken in the early stages.

In other markets, oil was up another 3% as OPEC+ rejected US calls to increase output.

Meanwhile, the spot ore price tumbled another 7% on sluggish demand from China, and is now trading at US$92.75

Bitcoin is trading higher at US$62,900 at 8am AEDT, down from US$61,200 level on Friday.

David Angliss, an analyst with Australia’s leading cryptocurrency investment firm, Apollo Capital, shares the fund’s weekly take on what’s happening in the fast-changing and volatile cryptocurrency space.

Read all about it here on Stockhead.

ASX 200 to open higher on Monday

The ASX 200 looks set to open higher this morning, with futures markets (December contracts) pointing up by 0.29% at 8:30am AEDT.

Last week, the ASX 200 closed 1.82% higher, with lithium stocks and the RBA’s decision not to hike rates dominating the news.

In large cap news this morning, Sydney Airport (ASX:SYD) has agreed to a takeover from a consortium at $8.75, valuing the airport at $23.6bn.

On the IPO front, SiteMinder (ASX:SDR), an open hotel commerce platform, will be listing at 11:00am AEDT today under the ticker SDR.

Founded in 2006, SiteMinder’s technology provides a platform to integrate the internal management systems of individual hotels with booking sites.

And later today, the National Skills Commission will issue preliminary results for the October Internet Vacancy Index.

Commsec says skilled job vacancies rebounded by 4.9 per cent in September.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Activeport (ASX:ATV)
The cloud software company released ActivePortal Compute, the company’s private cloud orchestration software solution for high-performance, GPU-centric computing. Using this software, customers can build private clouds anywhere in the world and connect them via ActivePort’s Global Edge SD-WAN network.

Cedar Wood Properties (ASX:CWP)
The company has significantly expanded its portfolio with the $49.5 million acquisition of an 86 hectare site in Eglinton, a suburb located in Perth’s burgeoning north-west growth corridor. The site will add over 1,200 lots to Cedar Woods’ development pipeline, and is expected to contribute to the company’s earnings over 11 years from FY24.

Arizona Lithium (ASX:AZL)
Strategic review completed for the Lordsburg Lithium Brine Project in New Mexico US resulted in AZL staking a further 96 claims, doubling the project footprint to 192 claims (15.54km2).The company has also commenced discussions for zero-carbon renewable power energy requirements for Lordsburg.

Advale Resources (ASX:ADD)
A study has highlighted the presence of helium anomalies within the company’s Lake Surprise tenement package. This, ADD says, strongly indicates the presence of uranium given the correlation seen at known uranium deposits proximal to the Project.

Calidus Resources (ASX:CAI)
Calidus aims to start development of Blue Spec in WA’s Pilbara, a project anticipated to increase annual production at Warrawoona to 130,000oz of gold when in full production.

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