Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Friday

Wall Street rises on solid earnings reports

US stock markets rose overnight, with all three benchmarks closing higher buoyed by another round of solid earnings.

The Dow Jones rose by 0.78%, S&P 500 by 0.60%, and tech heavy Nasdaq by 0.78%.

Uber’s Q2 earnings beat estimates (US$3.93bn vs US$3.75bn), but its operating loss was still US$1.19bn.

Robinhood (Nasdaq:HOOD) shares meanwhile, plunged by 28% after filings with the SEC indicated that early investors were selling their stake. The plunge overnight came after a gain of 50% the previous day.

In other markets, oil prices gained 1% overnight following three consecutive days of drops.

To cryptos, where Bitcoin is rising to trade at US$40,900 level at 8:00am AEST, from the US$39,900 level on Thursday.

The Ethereum EIP-1559 upgrade has now gone live, and ETH is seemingly building pace and trading at its highest levels in a couple of months at US$2,824 at 8:30am AEST.

ASX 200 to open higher ahead of RBA monetary decision

The ASX 200 looks set to open higher his morning, with futures markets (September contracts) pointing up by 0.35% at 8:30am AEST.

Yesterday, the benchmark index closed at closed at 7,511 points and gained 0.11% to its highest ever level, with Real Estate and Consumer Discretionary being the best performing sectors.

RBA governor Philip Lowe will testify in Canberra this morning, with the bank’s monetary policy decision to be announced at around 11:30am AEST.

In big cap news this morning, NewsCorp (ASX:NWS) full year net income was $389m, compared to a loss of $1.55bn in the previous year.

REA Group (ASX:REA) declared record dividend of 72c a share, on the back of a 178% increase in net profit of $313 million,

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Playside Studios (ASX:PLY)
The video games company reported a strong Q4 revenue of $3.13m, which was a 33% increase on the previous corresponding period (pcp). It also reported a 55% increase in full year revenue of $10.88m on pcp.

Mayfield Childcare (ASX:MFD)
The company reported a net profit of $1.25m for the half year, a 129% increase on pcp. This was off the back of $17.4m revenue, which was 6.1% higher than pcp.

BNK Banking Corp (ASX:BBC)
The bank reported that its loan book has increased by 28% in Q4. Its loan settlements were $173 in the quarter, which was 60% higher than the previous quarter.

Wingara AG (ASX:WNR)
The agricultural company announced that it will install an additional hay press to increase production at its hay processing, storage, marketing and export business, JC Tanloden (JCT). The arrangement will increase capacity at JCT’s Raywood facility to in excess of 100,000 metric tonnes per annum.

Metals X (ASX:MLX)
The tin and copper miner said that its CEO, Michael Spreadborough, will step down from the role of Chief Executive Officer, effective Monday, 9 August. The company said the role will not be replaced at this time.

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