Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Friday

ASX is set to end the week lower
San Fran Fed President Mary Daly signals that a 75bp hike may be off the cards
Bitcoin’s crash this week is the biggest since May 2021

ASX to fall, Bitcoin crashes

Aussie shares are set to open lower again, with the June ASX 200 futures pointing down by 0.1% at 8am AEDT.

Overnight, Wall Street staged a last hour comeback to end with just marginal losses – with the S&P 500 closing lower by 0.13%, the Dow by 0.33%, but tech heavy Nasdaq gained 0.06%.

The rebound came as San Fransisco Fed Reserve President Mary Daly said that a 75bp hike is “not a primary consideration”, and that a strong economy should be able to tolerate a 50bp hike.

“Going up in 50-basis-point increments to me makes quite a bit of sense, and there’s no reason right now that I see in the economy to pause on doing that in the next couple of meetings,” Daly told Bloomberg News.

Fed Chairman Powell had earlier raised rates by 50bp, while signalling that he would deliver at least two more rate hikes at the same size in the next two meetings.

The Aussie dollar has plunged to US68.6c as China’s Covid lockdowns in Shanghai and Beijing continued, raising concerns about China’s economic prospects and its appetite for Aussie commodities.

Meanwhile, panic continues to sweep the crypto markets. It was another large dump on Thursday morning (evening AEDT), with Bitcoin sinking lower into the HODLer’s toilet of despair.

At 8.30am AEDT, Bitcoin is trading at US$28,400 after dipping to as low as US$24k earlier.

In the last seven days, BTC has plunged by 22% while ETH is down 30% for the week and Solana has crashed 48%.

The week’s sell-off is now the second-largest in BTC’s history. To date, only the May 2021 crash caused more short-term pain.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Buru Energy (ASX:BRU)
Buru has appointed Thomas Nador as its new CEO. Nador comes to Buru from his current role as Group Executive of Development at Beach Energy. Buru’s Executive Chairman, Eric Streitberg, will continue in his current role for an appropriate period as Nador assumes day-to-day management of the company.

5EA Advanced Materials (ASX:5EA)
The minerals explorer updated the market on its Q3 activities, saying that its focus on boron and lithium could potentially enable it to become an important participant in the US lithium market. The company says its Small-Scale Boron Facility (SSBF) is targeting mechanical completion in CQ4 2022, after breaking ground in April.

Bigtincan (ASX:BTH)
The sales automation platform has joined the Oracle PartnerNetwork, and will be releasing products to target the industrial sector that work with the Oracle platform later in 2022. The integration with Oracle allows sales reps to view client information from Bigtincan, create custom presentations, and send data to Oracle systems for updates.

Amplia Therapeutics (ASX:ATX)
Amplia has just received approval from a second ethics committee to conduct the company’s Phase 2 clinical trial of its Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) inhibitor, AMP945. The drug will be studied for its effects on patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. This second approval will allow Amplia to recruit patients more rapidly and begin to generate early efficacy and safety results.

Mako Gold (ASX:MKG)
A 2,000m maiden reverse circulation (RC) drill program has commenced on high-priority targets at Korhogo, Mako’s second project in Cote d’Ivoire. Mako says the exploration at Korhogo will ensure the company continues to target discoveries, whilst moving its flagship Napié Project towards a Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE).