Market highlights and 5 ASX small caps to watch on Tuesday

Overseas Markets Highlights

US equities markets had a good day, with all three major exchanges climbing: Dow Jones up 2.11%, S&P500 up 2.52%, and NASDAQ up 2.97%.

That represents the S&P’s best day since June 2020 – with financials, IT stocks up around 3%. Apple stocks led the charge with a 5% surge.

Gamestop surged 20% again following the 150% rise last week.

Commodities were generally lower with gold, iron ore, and oil all dropping by around 0.5% to 1%.

Bitcoin surged by 11% to above US$48,000 level

Bitcoin is trading at US$48,585 as of the time of writing, 8am AEDT.

A Cambridge University study revealed that mining the coins is an extremely capital extensive endeavour, to a point where its annual carbon footprint is mindblowingly equivalent to countries such as Argentina and Norway.

Citigroup, however, released a report saying that the cryptocurrency could become “the currency of choice for international trade” in the years ahead.

Closer to home

The ASX surged by 1.7% on Monday, buoyed by the RBA’s $4 billion buyback of government bonds. RBA will convene for a meeting today. The ASX is set to rise again this morning following rises in the US overnight.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR)
The company announced that the first reverse circulation hole drilled beneath previously reported shallow air-core and auger drilling within a large gold anomaly at its 100%-owned Moora Project in Western Australia, has returned outstanding high-grade assay results, including one hit of 4m @ 10.1g/t gold from 220-240m.

Calidus Resources (ASX:CAI)
Calidus has commenced bulk earthworks at the processing plant area in its Warrawoona Gold Project, WA. The company said this is a key milestone that will ensure first gold on track for H1 2022.

Province Resources (ASX:PRL)
Announced that data collection on its HyEnergy Zero Carbon Hydrogen Project feasibility studies is to commence. The company said it has secured a Fulcrum3D SODAR (Sonic Detection and Ranging) weather monitoring station, to be deployed to site for data collection required to support the feasibility studies.

88Energy (ASX:88E)
88Energy announced that the mobilisation of Rig 111 to the Merlin-1 location is progressing well, with only minor delays due to weather. The Merlin-1 well will initially be drilled to 500m, then surface casing will be installed and the Blow Out Preventer system tested. This is expected to take approximately one week to execute. The well will then be deepened through the target horizons in the Nanushuk Formation to a maximum total depth of 2,000m.

PYC Theraperutics (ASX:PYC)
Announced that the company’s lead investigational drug, VP-001 has restored function of the Retinal Pigment Epithelium, the target cells for the therapy, in patient-derived models of the disease.

“This result has given us the best non-clinical demonstration that VP-001 has the potential to correct this problem in patients,” commented PYC’s US chief executive officer Sahm Nasseri.

The drug is used to treat RP11 or retinitis pigmentosa 11, a dominantly inherited retinal degenerative disease caused by mutations in the PRPF31 gene.