Wall Street rises, Bitcoin touches all time high

US stocks were mainly higher overnight, as corporate earnings results continued to impress.

The Dow Jones lifted 0.43%, the S&P 500 by 0.37%, and tech heavy Nasdaq was only a touch down by 0.04%.

It was the fifth positive gain day in a row for the S&P 500.

“The risk-on vibe continues to hit home, and the wall of worry is being climbed to the point where the Dow has made a new high, and the S&P500 is not far off,” pro trader Chris Weston said this morning.

Johnson & Johnson, Travelers, and Proctor & Gamble all posted better than expected earnings – signalling a rebound from the pandemic.

Pharmaceuticals company Novavax however plunged by 15% after a media report claimed the company would struggle with production delays in manufacturing its experimental COVID-19 vaccine.

Tesla beat earnings-per-share expectations and traded flat in after-hours trade, while shares in IBM fell.

In other markets, oil prices keep climbing and were up by 1% overnight, with Brent crude now trading at US$ 85.82/barrel. This came as US crude inventories dropped to its lowest level in three years in an extremely tight market.

Brent has not traded above $US85 since October 2018, as the global energy crisis continues to unfold.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin touched an all time high level of US$67k overnight, but pared back to settle at US$65,900 at 8am AEDT.

The coin has gained 50% over the past month, and its recent move was triggered by the launching of the first BTC ETF, ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (NYSE:BITO), this week.

The entire crypto market cap is also making another all-time high, currently flexing at US$2.759 trillion, give or take a few hundred million. It’s up 6.1 per cent since this time yesterday.

ASX 200 to open higher on Thursday

The ASX 200 looks set to open higher this morning, with futures markets (December contracts) pointing up by 0.16% at 8:30am AEDT.

Yesterday, the Aussie benchmark rose by another 0.53%. The Tech sector, which recently has tended to lag when yields start to rise, has outperformed for the last two days.

Later today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will issue the detailed labour force estimates for the month of September.

On the IPO front, two companies will make their debut on the ASX today.

iTech Minerals (ASX:ITM), plans to list at 11:00am AEDT and is set to acquire the Eyre Peninsula Kaolin Project, the Campoona Graphite Project, and the Franklyn Kaolin Project off Archer Materials (ASX:AXE).

Lykos Metals (ASX:LYK) will list at 2:00pm AEDT. The company raised $12m at 20c and is focused on battery metals exploration and development in Europe.

 

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Good Drinks Australia (ASX:GDA)
Total sales volume for Q1 was 4.3 million litres, up by 16% vs the previous year’s corresponding quarter. The company also expects strong sales to continue into Q2, and is targeting a 20 million litres in sales by FY25.

SILK Laser (ASX:SLA)
The non-surgical aesthetics clinic networks reported a 14% increase in its Q1 sales to $23.5 million. The online sales of its skincare brands were up more than 700% to $189k for the quarter.

Nexion Group (ASX:NNG)
The hybrid cloud provider reported a 252% increase in quarterly revenue to $1.91m. Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR) was up 145% to $5.9m. Nexion acquired Blue Sky for $2m in cash during the quarter, its first acquisition since IPO.

Lithium Energy (ASX:LEL)
The company said it has commenced investigations into the establishment of a manufacturing facility to purify and spheronise graphite sourced from its high-grade Burke Graphite deposit in Queensland, for use as anode material in lithium-ion batteries. The Burke Graphite Deposit is one of the world’s highest-grade graphite deposits.

Auric Mining (ASX:AWJ)
Drilling in Auric’s recently acquired Guest Prospect has identified a new, previously unidentified, zone of gold mineralisation. Located close to surface, intercepts include: 3m @ 3.45g/t Au from 13m depth, and 8m @ 3.95g/t Au from 37m depth.

 

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

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