Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Thursday

ASX to open 0.6% lower
Commodities bounce back as EU and US to discuss embargo on Russian energy
Aussie dollar jumps to US75c

ASX to dip, ban on Russian energy imminent

Local shares are set to dip this morning after major stock indices on Wall Street fell by over 1% overnight.

At 8am, the ASX 200 April futures is pointing down by 0.65%.

There was a broad-based selloff in US equities as oil prices jumped on the news that US and EU were a step closer to passing an embargo on Russian energy imports. An official announcement is likely to be released on Friday.

Brent crude rose by 4% to US$120.57 a barrel, with many other energy commodities like natural gas and uranium also climbing higher.

The Aussie dollar, which is highly tied to commodity prices, jumped to as high as US75c.

Iron ore price bounced back 2% but is still facing downward pressure as China’s COVID-19 outbreak intensifies. China has just put another city of 9 million people, Shenyang, under lockdown, with Walt Disney also shutting down its theme park in Shanghai.

Back home, asset manager Janus Henderson (ASX: JHG) has just appointed Ali Dibadj as its new CEO. Dibadj is a former CFO and Portfolio Manager at AllianceBernstein.

To cryptos where Bitcoin is trading flat at US$42,336 at 8.25am AEDT.

Stockhead caught up with Illuvium’s Kieran Warwick – a key advisor to the Ethlizards, a project that’s set to be next blue chip NFT. Read all about it here on Coinhead.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

McPherson’s (ASX:MCP)
McPherson’s signed a deal to become Chemist Warehouse (CWG)’s exclusive long-term distributor of a select portfolio CWG products in Australia and NZ. As part of the deal, CWG will be issued 14.1 million McPherson’s shares at 88c each, making CWG a 9.9% shareholder of MCP.

Immutep (ASX:IMM)
New interim data from IMM’s Phase II TACTI-002 trial has been published in an abstract today, in advance of the European Lung Cancer Congress to be held starting on 30 March. The TACTI-002 study is currently being conducted in collaboration with Merck in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, or non-small cell lung cancer.

Traffic Technologies (ASX:TTI)
TTI has received an initial order of $1.3 million to supply the most advanced streetlights in Sydney, as part of the largest smart lighting upgrade program across Australia. The upgrade is to be completed by Ausgrid in partnership with Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (SSROC).

Galileo Mining (ASX:GAL)
Galileo announced further palladium and platinum assay results from aircore drilling at the company’s 100% owned Norseman project in WA. Results include: 8 metres @ 1.44 g/t 2E (palladium + platinum), 0.11% nickel, 0.01% copper from 8m.

Stavely Minerals (ASX:SVY)
Follow-up diamond drilling at the Toora West porphyry copper-moly-gold prospect has produced high-grade gold assays of 8.72g/t and 4.27g/t. Stavely says the high-grade gold results appear to be associated with the copper sulphide mineral tetrahedrite, reflecting a late, cooler temperature overprint on the earlier copper-molybdenum mineralisation.

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