Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Monday

ASX to open 1% down following plunge on Wall Street
RBA’s interest rates decision tomorrow, US Fed on Thursday

ASX to open lower ahead of RBA decision tomorrow

The ASX 200 is set to open much lower this morning, following a selloff on Wall Street on Friday. At 8am AEDT, the ASX 200 June futures contract is pointing down by more than 1%.

On Friday, all three major US stockmarket benchmarks plunged around 3-4% ahead of the US Fed meeting this Thursday.

US bond traders are pricing in a 50 basis point hike by the Fed this week, and a 50% chance of another 75bp hike in the June meeting.

In equities, US investors were spooked by growth concerns as Amazon’s quarterly earnings showed that shopping on its online marketplace declined, which could indicate a potential slowing in the broader economy. The Amazon stock price collapsed 14% on Friday.

There were relatively minor movements in commodities, with nickel falling by 4% and Brent crude rising by 1.5%.

Bitcoin had a choppy last 24 hours, as it plummeted to as low as US$37,600, before bouncing back to US$38,900 at 8.30am AEDT.

This comes as Warren Buffett reiterated his stance against Bitcoin at Berkshire’s annual shareholders meeting last week, maintaining that he cannot see the intrinsic value in the crypto coin.

Back home, all eyes will be on the RBA meeting on Tuesday. Experts expect the RBA to leave the cash rate unchanged at 0.1% this time, but will set the scene for a June rate hike.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Little Green Pharma (ASX:LGP)
LGP has signed a three-year agreement for distribution of its branded oils and flower products to Sana Life Sciences, to be sold across the UK. LGP says the agreement represents an annual revenue opportunity of $1.44m, with first revenue expected in late Q2 or early Q3 calendar year 2022.

Midas Minerals (ASX:MM1)
Midas’ recent field visit confirms the occurrence of lithium-rich LCT pegmatites on the Newington Project in WA. Samples of highly weathered pegmatite and pegmatoids return up 1.3% Li2O, as the company plans aircore drilling to follow up the sampling.

Damstra Holdings (ASX:DTC)
Damstra has signed a master services agreement with Barrick Gold, with an initial contract value of at least US$1.2m and scope for significant expansion. Damstra will collaborate with Barrick to define a “Global Learning and Training Management Template”.

Wellfully (ASX:WFL)
Wellfully has secured capital commitments of up to $55 million over a three-year period from Luxembourg based GEM Global Yield. The funding is expected to help give the company the financial flexibility to execute its strategic development plan.

Inoviq Ltd (ASX:IIQ)
Inoviq has executed a Master Manufacturing Agreement with MP Biomedicals for production of the SubB2M protein for the company’s SubB2M-based tests. Inoviq’s SubB2M technology detects the pan-cancer biomarker Neu5Gc, found at elevated levels in multiple human cancers. The agreement enables production of cGMP protein for commercial SubB2M tests, and represents a key milestone for the company.