Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Wednesday

US tech stocks extend retreat

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones ended up higher overnight, but tech heavy Nasdaq Composite index extended its retreat.

The S&P500 was up 0.17%, the Dow rose by 0.55%, and Nasdaq slipped 0.5%.

The fall in tech stocks came on the back of rising Treasury yields, with the benchmark 10-year climbing 5 basis points to 1.68% as Fed chairman Jerome Powell is sworn in.

Tesla weighed on the Nasdaq index, falling by 5%,

The spot iron ore price maintained its rally, and was up another 4% after rising 10% in the previous two days. It’s now just short of US$100 at $US99.83 a tonne.

In other markets, gold was up 1% while oil prices were also higher by 3%.

Bitcoin has rallied, and is trading at US$57,060 at 8am AEDT, from the US$55,800 level yesterday.

For the bullish picture, most technical analysts are looking for BTC to break through the resistance that’s formed around $US60k and flip it back into support.

But, as Dutch trader Michaël van de Poppe points out below, a bounce off further support down around US$53k wouldn’t be the worst outcome for the bulls, either.

Read the rest of the story here on Stockhead.

ASX 200 to open flat on Wednesday

The ASX 200 looks set to open flattish this morning, with futures markets (December contracts) pointing just slightly up by 0.01% at 8:30am AEDT.

Yesterday, the local index rose 0.78%, closing at 7,411 points, with the gains driven by the resources and energy sectors, which gained 2.3% and 2.54% respectively.

Set to list at 11am AEDT is heart failure medical device company EBR Systems (ASX:EBR).

We’ll also be expecting a speech by RBA official, Michelle Bullock later today.

And in New York time, investors will today be anxiously waiting for the US Fed meeting minutes, US GDP data, and US jobless claims data for the week.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Envirosuite (ASX:EVS)
EVS has commenced two strategic agreements with GHD. Under the agreements, GHD will support the scaling of implementation of EVS Water for major water treatment facilities, as well as refer prospective clients to Envirosuite.

Webjet (ASX:WEB)
The airline has started its turnaround, and its revenue for H1 of FY22 was $55.4m compared to $22.6m in the previous year’s half. The company has cash reserves of $446 million, offering significant flexibility and runway.

ASX Ltd (ASX:ASX)
Corporate regulator ASIC has today announced the conclusion of its investigation into the ASX equity market outage in November 2020. ASX has also agreed to address the recommendations of the independent expert report into the outage.

Ardiden Ltd (ASX:ADV)
The gold explorer said permit has been received from Ontario Mines Department for exploration drilling to commence at the Esker Gold Prospect situated on the Western Hub of Ardiden’s Pickle Lake Gold Project.

Golden State Mining (ASX:GSM)
The Yule gold and lithium reconnaissance air-core drilling program in the Pilbara has been successfully completed. First assay results are expected in late December, with further results expected throughout January and February 2022.

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