Market highlights and 5 ASX small caps to watch on Tuesday

Wall Street finishes on record highs again after strong US jobs data

Dow Jones and S&P500 closed on Monday at record highs once again, following the US jobs data on Friday that showed almost 1 million jobs were added in March, and unemployment falling to 6 per cent.

Dow Jones closed 1.13% higher, S&P500 rose by 1.44%, while tech heavy NASDAQ also rose by 1.67%, closing in on its all time high set in February.

Tesla beat market forecasts, after delivering 185,000 vehicles in the first quarter, despite the global microchips shortage. Its share price closed higher by 4.4%. Other tech stocks like Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google also finished higher.

In other markets, oil prices were down by almost 6% on oil demand fears as COVID cases soared around the world. This will put pressure on ASX oil stocks today.

Bitcoin is steady at USD$58,900 at 8am AEDT.

Closer to home

The RBA is meeting today, where the Bank will decide on whether or not it will increase rates.

Regis Resources (ASX:RRL) is set to rise, after increasing its mineral resource estimate for its Ben Hur gold mine to 10.3 million tonnes at 1.2g/t for 390,000 ounces of gold.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Peninsula Energy (ASX:PEN)
The uranium mining company’s shares are set to rise, after announcing that it has entered into multiple binding purchase agreements to procure natural uranium concentrates (U3O8), sufficient to meet the entirety of its calendar year 2022. When combined with the existing calendar year 2021 purchase agreements, this secures a forecast net cash margin of US$7 million to US$8 million on uranium sales in CY2021, and US$8 million to US$9 million on uranium sales in CY2022.

Oilex (ASX:OEX)
The oil and gas company is set to rise this morning, after announcing that GSPC has approved the sale of its 55% participating interest in the Cambay PSC to Oilex for the purchase price of US$2.2 million. The transaction has also received the approval of the state government of Gujarat., India. Following completion of the transaction, Oilex will hold a 100% participating interest in the Cambay PSC. This will provide Oilex with the ability, subject to sourcing the necessary funding, to restart field work on the gas wells.

Exopharm (ASX:EX1)
The clinical-stage regenerative medicine company announced that results from its PLEXOVAL II phase I safety study with the company’s off-the-shelf (allogeneic) platelet-derived EV product, Plexaris, found there were no unexpected safety events reported during the study, with all 11 enrolled participants remaining healthy throughout and after their 30-day follow- up period.

Comms Group (ASX:CCG)
The cloud communications company has upgraded its forecast, saying that it expects FY21 EBITDA guidance will meet or exceed $3 million, which includes 5 months trading from Next Telecom. Comms Group run-rate revenue and EBITDA is now expected to be $35 million+ (over 90% recurring revenue) and $4 million+ respectively.

Total Brain (ASX:TTB)
The mental health medtech company announce that it has received US$1.05 million from the U.S. government via the Paycheck Protection Program. The additional funding will be used to offset payroll costs for company’s employees in the United States.