Market highlights and 5 ASX small caps to watch on Tuesday

Dow continues record high

The blue chip Dow Jones continued its bull run, posting yet another record high on Monday’s trading, after rising by 0.53%.

The S&P 500 gained 0.65%, while tech heavy NASDAQ rose by 1.05%.

Airlines stocks rose, in a sign the market is expecting a turnaround in the travel industry.

The gains came despite several European countries announcing the suspension of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to investigate possible blood clot side-effects. Germany, France, Italy, and Holland said they were pausing the vaccine pending the investigation.

The yield on 10-year treasuries, meanwhile, retreated to 1.6% after hitting a one-year high of 1.64% on Friday.

Bitcoin retreats to US$56,000 level

Bitcoin is currently trading at US$56,650 at 8am AEDT, after hitting record levels of US$61,000 on the weekend.

A survey conducted by Mizuho revealed that up to US$40 billion of the COVID-19 relief cheques sent to American households could go into buying Bitcoin.

Closer to home

The ASX200 rose slightly by 0.09% on Monday trading, and could open even higher today.

ASX-listed Dexus (ASX:DXS) is making a play to merge AMP (ASX:AMP)‘s Capital Diversified Property Fund into its own fund. The AMP fund is worth $5 billion.

Fortescue’s (ASX:FMG) board, through Andrew Forrest, made an announcement to the ASX yesterday saying that the company will target carbon neutrality by 2030.

Retailer Metcash (ASX:MET) reported that its supermarket sales were up by 14.4% for the first four months.

Watch for RBA’s meeting announcement released today.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Credit Intelligence(ASX:CI1)
The insolvency and fintech company announced the launch of the YOZO BNPL services to the Hong Kong SME market. Hong Kong was selected as the first city in the Asian market to launch the YOZO BNPL services, as the city has over 300,000 active SMEs.

Immutep (ASX:IMM)
The biotechnology company developing immunotherapy treatments for cancer announced a second clinical trial collaboration and supply agreement with subsidiaries of American company Merck & Co. Under the agreement, Immutep will conduct a new Phase IIb clinical trial in first line HNSCC patients. The study is to evaluate the efficacy of Immutep’s lead product candidate, eftilagimod alpha (efti or IMP321), when given in combination with MSD’s KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab).

BARD1 Life Sciences (ASX:BD1)
Biotech company BARD1 announced preliminary positive data from a collaborative pancreatic cancer pilot study with Minomic. The study was done to evaluate BARD1’s EXO-NETTM exosome capture technology and Minomic’s anti-GPC-1 antibody for detection of  pancreatic cancer. The results demonstrated the scientific feasibility of utilising EXO-NETTM to isolate exosomes for pancreatic cancer detection in conjunction with an anti-GPC-1 antibody.

Clean TeQ (ASX:CLQ)
The company announced the award to Clean TeQ Water of a contract to design, procure, deliver and install a Clean TeQ BIONEX water treatment plant to a coal mine in Inner Mongolia, China.

WestStar Industrial (ASX:WSI)
Engineering company WestStar subsidiary SIMPEC has been awarded a $2.1 million vertical contract at Cloudbreak mine, which is owned by Fortescue. The contract is SIMPEC’s first with Fortescue, and will commence immediately.

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