Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Wednesday

Wall Street mixed, oil prices volatile

The US markets returned from the long weekend Independence Day holiday, and posted mixed results.

The Dow Jones fell by 0.60%, S&P 500 was down 0.20%, but the Nasdaq rose by 0.17%.

The Pentagon has cancelled a $10 billion Jedi cloud computing contract with Microsoft, which was at the centre of a legal feud with Amazon since 2019. The Amazon share price rose by 5% following this decision, while Microsoft closed flat.

Meanwhile, oil prices were volatile on Tuesday, first rising before falling sharply with Brent Crude down by more than 3 per cent after an OPEC meeting ended without an agreement.

To cryptos, Bitcoin is currently trading at US$33,900 level at 8am AEST, from the US$US$34,000 level on Tuesday.

There is speculation that Tesla might be facing up to $100 million in impairment losses from Bitcoin in Q2, as BTC had dropped from an all time high of US$64,800 in April.

ASX 200 to open lower on Wednesday

The ASX 200 looks set to open much lower at the open this morning, with futures markets (September contracts) pointing down by 0.99 per cent at 8:30am AEST.

Yesterday, the index closed lower by 0.73per cent, with Energy having another solid day gaining 1.54% but every other sector was in the red, led by Tech and Telcos which lost 1.85% and 2.02% respectively.

The RBA also announced yesterday it will keep its cash rate at an ultra-low 0.1 per cent until 2024, while reducing its bond buy-back program to $4 billion a week until November.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

MyDeal.com.au (ASX:MYD)
The online retail marketplace has reported another record year, with gross sales up 111 per cent to $218.1 million. The company also said its active customers are at record levels, up by 83.1 per cent year-on-year to 894,225.

Cogstate (ASX:CGS)
The medtech company has reported record clinical trial sales contracts for FY21, up by 14,8% on prior corresponding period (pcp) to $41.3 million. This was underpinned by a strong June quarter, which saw $11.4 million in contracts executed.

SECOS (ASX:SES)
The packaging materials company announced that it will establish a Global Research Centre for Bioproducts. SECOS will invest $2 million to develop a world-class centre in Australia to support burgeoning demand for bio-based resin, film, and products.

BWX Ltd (ASX:BWX)
The skin and hair care products company announced a strategic partnership with Chemist Warehouse Group (CWG), confirming that the second tranche of BWX shares will be issued to CWG as part of the the five-year equity linked strategic partnership between the two companies.

Gateway Mining (ASX:GML)
GML said that a significant new gold zone has been discovered adjacent to the cornerstone Montague-Boulder deposit. Initial drilling in this area has returned highly significant intercepts including: 7 metres @ 3.0g/t Au from 84m; and 7 metres @ 1.5g/t Au from 113m.