Market Highlights: Nvidia upgraded, Snapchat crashes 35pc, and 5 ASX small caps to watch today

Estimated read time 4 min read

ASX to extend gains after an AI driven rally on Wall Street
Alibaba, Snapchat missed forecasts, the latter slumping by 35pc
Adam Neumann now wants to buy back WeWork

 

The ASX is poised extend its gains on Thursday, in line with New York. At 8am AEDT, the ASX 200 index futures contract was pointing modestly higher by just 2 points.

Overnight, the S&P 500 rose by +0.82%, hitting a new record high. The blue chips Dow Jones index was up by +0.40%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lifted by +95%.

US markets gained on strong corporate earnings and a rally in artificial intelligence-linked mega cap tech stocks.

Nvidia continued to surge by +2.75% ahead of its Q4 earnings.

Morgan Stanley has now raised its price target on Nvidia from $US603 to $750 (versus current market price of US$700).

Ford Motor jumped 6% after after reporting quarterly loss due to  restructuring of overseas operations, but said sales grew.

Alibaba slumped by almost 6% after missing quarterly revenue target, but announced that it was increasing its share buyback program by US$25 billion.

Biggest mover last night was Snap Inc (parent of Snapchat), which crashed by -35% after missing top and bottom lines forecasts, and a disappointing guidance.

Meanwhile, the auction of US 10-year notes gave investors some encouragement after the US government managed to sell a record $US42 billion.

 

Neumann is back!

Adam Neumann is back from the dead and wants to buy the now-bankrupt company he founded, WeWork.

A law firm representing Neumann and his new real estate venture, Flow Global, sent a letter to WeWork accusing its execs of refusing to take meetings to discuss a potential sale.

The letter also claimed Dan Loeb’s Third Point was interested in going in on the deal.

WeWork responded that it gets a lot of offers every day, and it looks through all of them.

At its height in 2018, WeWork was NYC’s largest corporate tenant with around 60 locations around the city.

But everything crumbled rapidly as soon as people started poking around the company’s financials ahead of a planned US$47b IPO.

The company, which was owned by Softbank, ousted him in 2019 and filed for bankruptcy last year.

 

In other markets …

Gold price fell by -0.1% to US$2,033.90 an ounce.

Oil prices lifted another +1%, with Brent now trading at US$79.37 a barrel.

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield was up 2 basis points (bond prices lower) to 4.11%.

Iron ore futures was flat at US$125.00 a tonne.

The Aussie dollar slipped by -0.1% to US65.21c.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin was up +2.5% in the last 24 hours to US$44,300.

 

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Kula Gold (ASX:KGD)
KGD reported that recent geochemical sampling and geophysical interpretation has identified two new and advanced two other gold prospects at the Marvel Loch Project (KGD 100%), near Southern Cross WA. All prospects are north of the Nevoria Gold Mine (+600,000oz gold), and east of the 3Moz Marvel Loch Gold Mine.

Askari Metals (ASX:AS2)
Trenching of one of the key targets has revealed a thicker and more extensive zone of LCT type pegmatites than was previously identified from the surface mapping. 44 trenches totalling 5,380m were excavated on a 40m spacing, with mapping completed and channel sampling currently in progress.

Miramar Resources (ASX:M2R)
M2R announced that it has identified multiple, very large uranium targets within the company’s 100%-owned Bangemall Projects, in the Gascoyne region of WA. Regional radiometric data shows multiple very large and high-amplitude uranium anomalies that stretch over at least 100km of strike and across several of Miramar’s tenements.

Brookside Energy (ASX:BRK)
Brookside announced that the Sanford Pad is now drill rig ready in preparation for arrival of Kenai Rig 19, which is expected to mobilise within 10 days. Conductor holes for each of the Fleury, Maroons and Iginla wells have been drilled and cased. Power has been connected to the pad eliminating the need to rent power generators, thus saving on rental and operating costs. Housing and equipment trailers have begun arriving on site.

Dreadnought Resources (ASX:DRE)
DRE announced results from an intensive review of gold opportunities, resulting in the prioritisation of seven camp scale prospects at the 100% owned Central Yilgarn Project located in WA. The seven camp scale gold prospects prioritised (T1, T2, T6, T11, T18, T20, T21) were part of an extensive review at Central Yilgarn. Three of the prospects have a number of walk-up drill targets.

 

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Kula Gold and Miramar Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

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