Market highlights and 5 ASX small caps to watch on Wednesday

Global equities tumble

All major world indices tumbled overnight as COVID-19 deaths spiked in India and elsewhere.

In the US, the Dow Jones dropped 0.75%, S&P500 shed 0.68%, while tech heavy NASDAQ also tumbled by 0.92%.

Europe recorded even bigger falls – FTSE, STOXX, and DAX all fell by around 2%.

Travel stocks were hit particularly hard, with United Airlines falling by 8.5 per cent. Netflix also fell by 10%, after subscriber numbers missed expectations.

In other markets, iron ore has extended its rally to a 10-year high. It rose by 4.2% overnight to US$189.60 a tonne, as output from Brazilian miner Vale fell short of expectations.

Oil dropped by 1.5%, while the 10-year benchmark Treasury yield also fell to sit at 1.56%.

Bitcoin is slightly higher this morning at 8am AEDT, trading at the US$57,000 level.

Closer to home

The ASX is set to open sharply lower today on the back of the global equities rout. The ASX futures index is pointing to a 1 per cent lower at the open.

BHP (ASX:BHP) says that record production was achieved at Western Australia Iron Ore (WAIO), and record average concentrator throughput was delivered at Escondida. The company said that it shipped BHP 66 million tonnes of iron ore from Western Australia over the past three months, compared to the market estimate of 67.2 million tonnes.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Telex Pharmaceuticals (ASX:TLX)
Telex shares are set to rise this morning, after announcing that the Phase I component of the company’s ZIRDAC-JP clinical study of its renal cancer imaging product has reported results and met the study objectives – demonstrating safety and tolerability of TLX250-CDx in Japanese patients.

American Pacific Borates (ASX:ABR)
The miner is set to rise this morning, after announcing that it has assembled a team to drive the company’s US listing process. ABR has been preparing for its secondary listing on NASDAQ via an American Repository Deposit (ADR). The company owns the Fort Cady Boron project located in Southern California, USA.

Splitit (ASX:SPT)
The BNPL play is also set to rise at the open, after reporting that its merchant sales volume grew strongly to US$82 million, up 247 per cent year on year. Gross revenue is also up by 292 per cent year on year to US$2.7 million.

Iron ore plays: Magnetite Mines (ASX:MGT), Strike Resources (ASX:SRK)
These iron ore stocks may be popular today after iron ore continued its rise overnight to a 10-year high.