Wall Street inches higher

All major US indices rose overnight.

The Dow Jones index finished higher by 0.03%, S&P by 0.19%, and tech heavy NASDAQ by 0.59%.

Ford rose by 8.5%, after saying that it expects 40 per cent of its sales to come from EVs by the end of this decade.

 


 

Bitcoin gains

Bitcoin rose, and is trading at US$39,100 level at 8am AEDT, from the US$38,000 level yesterday.

The crypto market has been under pressure as the US Fed and other central banks around the world are making their cases for a government backed digital currency, or CBDC (central bank digital currency).

But the recent plunge has spurred trading activities here in Australia, with Binance reporting a record $600 million in daily cryptocurrency trading volume against the Aussie currency pairs last week.
 

Closer to home

The ASX 200 finished 0.32 per cent lower on Wednesday, with Tech being the major winner, gaining 1.4 per cent.

In big cap news, AMP (ASX:AMP) announced that regulator ASIC has commenced civil penalty proceedings over the company’s treatment of insurance premiums and advice fees to more than 2,000 customers despite being notified of their death.

Fisher & Paykel (ASX:FPH) announced an 82 per cent increase in net profit to $524 million, on the back of $1.97 billion in operating revenue.
 

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Volpara Health (ASX:VHT)
The medtech SaaS company reported its FY21 full year results, with total revenue increasing by 57 per cent to NZ$19.7m. However, this resulted in a net loss after tax of NZ$17.5m, a 14 per cent improvement from pcp.

Etherstack (ASX:ESK)
The wireless communications tech company has been awarded a contract with UK Ministry of Defence for technology and services, with an initial value of GBP220,000. This follows the Commonwealth of Australia win announced yesterday; and these two deals will collectively contribute around US$700,000 in additional revenue to the current financial year.

Apiam Animal Health (ASX:AHX)
The company has announced strategic acquisition of three Queensland-based veterinary businesses, for a total combined consideration of $6.7 million. Each of these acquisitions is geographically strategic for Apiam, and presents attractive opportunities to grow the company’s revenue base in the region.

engage:BDR (ASX:EN1)
The online advertising company has signed a new partnership deal with Smart, an industry leading ad serving platform. Smart works with 30K+ premium publishers and has buyers in EU, US, LATAM & APAC, and will provide monetisation solutions to EN1 for the company’s advertising inventory.

Vection Tech (ASX:VR1)
The virtual reality tech company announced a tie-up with Toshiba Tec, to commence the commercial distribution of the company’s Mixed Reality (XR) software portfolio to the EMEA region. Toshiba Tec is a global provider of IT across multiple industries via its 80 subsidiaries worldwide.

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Apiam Animal Health is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.

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