Wall Street continues recent bull run

All three US indices rallied again overnight, with oil prices and Bitcoin also surging to recent highs.

The Dow Jones lifted 0.56%, the S&P 500 by 0.74%, and tech heavy Nasdaq by 0.71%.

Solid earnings from US corporates earnings continue to roll in, with Netflix being the latest big name to report theirs.

The company posted its strongest subscriber growth this year, which it partly attributed to Korean drama, “Squid Game”.

Squid Game is expected to create almost $USUS900 million in value for the company, according to the latest figures quoted by Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, oil prices are up again and climbing by 1%, with Brent crude now trading at US$ 85.08/barrel.

It was the first time since October 2018 that benchmark Brent had closed above $US85, amid an ongoing worldwide energy crisis caused by reopening economies and a freezing northern hemisphere winter.

In other markets, the spot iron ore price was flat, while copper took a breather from its all time highs and was down 7%.

To cryptos, where Bitcoin is closing in on its all time highs of US$64,869, trading at US$63,900 at 8am AEDT.

The ProShares Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (BITO) is up and running, trading on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time overnight, and has already topped $1b trading volume.

The fund’s price rose to $41.94 at the close of day, up 4.9% from its initial $40 net asset value.

ASX 200 to open higher on Wednesday

The ASX 200 looks set to open higher this morning, with futures markets (December contracts) pointing up by 0.55% at 8:30am AEDT.

Yesterday, the Aussie benchmark rallied for most of the day, but retreated in the afternoon and finally closed in the red, down 0.08% to 7,375 points.

Tech was the best sector gaining 1.7% while resources was the worst retreating 1.2%.

On the IPO front, stocks expected to list on the ASX today are:

Activeport Group (ASX:ATV), a telco software company that raised $15m at 20c a share.
and Alvo Minerals (ASX:ALV), a mineral explorer that raised $10m at 25c a share.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Whispir Ltd (ASX:WSP)
The cloud software company reported a 31.8% increase in Q1 annualised recurring revenue (ARR) to $56.8m. The company says global mega trends of digitisation provided strong tailwinds, as it meets the increasing demand for communications intelligence.

Douugh Ltd (ASX:DOU)
The fintech has just launched its in-app member-get-member (MGM) feature, a move designed to further accelerate its customer acquisition rate. Customers can now earn $20 credit for every person they refer to the Douugh platform, with each new member also receiving $20 in credit when they sign up.

Opthea Ltd (ASX:OPT)
The eye disease biotech announced the first clinical trial sites in the Asia-Pacific region are now open for patient enrolment into its OPT-302 Phase 3 clinical trial. The trial will study lead drug OPT-302 for the treatment of wet (neovascular) age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Osprey Medical (ASX:OSP)
The medical device company has experienced strong growth in Q3, with worldwide net revenue increasing by 50% on pcp to $508k. OSP said its strategic alliance with GE Healthcare underpinned the strong result, with an 80% increase on pcp reported for its European sales.

BlackEarth Minerals (ASX:BEM)
BlackEarth has executed a joint venture (JV) agreement with India based company, Metachem Manufacturing, to supply a material portion of its expandable graphite into Europe. Estimated JV revenue is $9m in year one, then ramping up to around $17m. BEM says the expandable graphite market is expected to grow in demand as a fire retardant material, as well as use in the automotive, EV and alternative energy sectors.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Activeport Group and BlackEarth Minerals are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

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