Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Thursday

ASX to fall as Wall Street ends lower

Local shares are set to open lower and end a seven-day winning streak, with April futures pointing down by 0.12% at 8am AEDT.

In March, the ASX 200 index is up by almost 7%.

US stocks fell overnight as conflict in Ukraine rages on despite Russia’s promise to de-escalate its activities in major cities including Kyiv.

Tech stocks were hit hardest with Nasdaq falling by over 1%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow fell by 0.63% and 0.19% respectively.

Oil prices climbed again, with Brent crude rising by 2% to US$112.57 a barrel. The Aussie dollar is little changed at US75.1c.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is only just clinging on to the US$47k level at the time of writing, trading at US$47,200 this morning.

Most of the top 10 coins have taken a little dip over the past 24 hours, although nothing too drastic.

On the economics data front, there will be lots of reports coming out later today. February dwelling approvals, job vacancies, and the private sector credit data will all be released today.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Twenty Seven Co (ASX:TSC)
TSC has struck an agreement with Rio Tinto Exploration (RTX) to advance exploration of the Rover Project in WA. RTX will explore TSC’s Rover for non-gold minerals during an initial exclusive six-month option period. During this period, RTX may elect to earn an 80% JV interest in the non-gold mineral rights by funding $5m into the exploration.

Talga Group (ASX:TLG)
Talga has commissioned and commenced its Electric Vehicle Anode (EVA) plant in northern Sweden to supply coated anode. The EVA plant uses graphite concentrate from the company’s wholly-owned Vittangi Graphite Project, to produce Talga’s flagship Li-ion battery anode product Talnode-C.

Essential Metals (ASX:ESS)
Drilling will commence in May targeting growth in the Dome North Lithium Resource ahead of scoping study in the December quarter. The drill program of up to ~9,000m is anticipated to start in mid-May, and will take up to 2.5 months to complete.

Castillo Copper (ASX:CCZ)
Ongoing work on the JORC mineral resource estimate uncovered new cobalt assays, and continues to build the case for CCZ’s Broken Hill Project in WA. Best assay intercepts include: 5m @ 1,200ppm Co from 15m, and 10m @ 510ppm Co from 5m.

X2M Connect (ASX:X2M)
X2M Connect has secured another two tender wins in South Korea, with a combined value of approximately $0.85 million.The deals will see X2M providing remote water monitoring and control services, including the X2M IoT platform to another 5,360 households in the country.