Wall Street mixed ahead of Fed meeting

US stock markets closed in mixed territories overnight, as investors digested the impact of Evergrande’s collapse in China.

The Dow Jones fell by 0.15%, S&P500 by 0.08%, while the tech heavy Nasdaq climbed 0.22%.

Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Morgan Stanley’s chief investment officer said that a plunge of 20% for the S&P 500 was a real possibility.

Uber meanwhile, was one of the best performing stocks overnight, rising by 11.5% after upgrading its forecast and saying that it will reach profitability in the third quarter.

Traders are looking ahead to the US Federal Reserve’s meeting, which will be held tonight (US time) where a timeline of the asset purchase tapering could be announced.

In other markets, the spot iron ore price is finally holding steady, while oil prices rose by 0.6%.

To cryptos, where Bitcoin continues to plummet and is trading at US$41,300at 8:00am AEST this morning, from US$43,800 yesterday. This follows a 10% fall yesterday.

Crypto juggernaut Binance says it will cease offering its futures trading offering as of Friday, citing a desire to comply with local regulations.

Binance is also cutting Aussies off from options trading and trading in leveraged tokens, leaving margin trading the only form of leverage available to punters on its popular platform.

ASX 200 to open lower on Wednesday

The ASX 200 looks set to open lower his morning, with futures markets (December contracts) pointing down by 0.20% at 8:30am AEST.

Yesterday, the Aussie benchmark defied the odds and finished the day in positive territory, up by 0.35%.

Set to list at 11am AEST today is Internet of Things (IoT) technology platform X2M Connect (ASX:X2M).

Followed at 11:30am AEST by nickel explorer Widgie Nickel (ASX:WIN).

Also this morning, RBA deputy governor Guy Debelle will make an appearance at the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics.

And at 12pm EST RBA assistant governor Michelle Bullock will give a speech called ‘The Housing Market and Financial Stability’.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Kina Securities (ASX:KSL)
Kina’ proposed acquisition to acquire Westpac (ASX:WBC)’s Pacific businesses has fallen through. This follows the decision by Papua New Guinea’s Independent Consumer and Competition Commission to reject the acquisition. Kina had previously proposed to acquire Westpac Fiji and Westpac Bank PNG.

Empired (ASX:EPD)
The IT services company has won a $15m managed services contract with Horizon Power for an initial term of three years. Under the deal, Empired will provide a range of digital managed services to Horizon Power’s network, cloud, security, infrastructure and core business applications.

Playside Studios (ASX:PLY)
The video gaming company has extended its work-for-hire development agreement with Facebook Technologies for a further 6 months. Under the terms, PlaySide will deliver between 10-16 mini games, with the contract value increasing by 90% from the original contract.

Papyrus Australia (ASX:PPY)
The packaging company has lodged an Australian patent application for its banana fibre production process which produces an environmentally friendly fibre, for use in moulded food packaging products. Commercial value of this process was recently proven in a series of trials.

Atomos (ASX:AMS)
The video equipment tech company has appointed a new CEO, Estelle McGechie, effective immediately. McGechie is currently the company’s Chief Product Officer, and has previously worked for global giants such as Apple and Walt Disney.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Playside Studios is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.

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