ASX to rise to start Budget week

The Treasury will deliver its 2022/23 Federal Budget at 7pm on Tuesday (tomorrow), earlier than normal due to the May election. 

JP Morgan expects the forecast Budget deficit to come in at $80 billion.

Local shares are expected to rise at the open this morning, with the ASX 200 April futures index pointing 0.40% higher at 8am AEDT.

On Friday, Wall Street finished mainly higher – the S&P 500 rose by 0.51%, the Dow climbed 0.44%, but tech heavy Nasdaq fell 0.16%.

Bond yields continue to rise, with the benchmark 10-year US treasury now at 2.47% – up by 0.50% just in the past few weeks. Bond markets have been selling off globally, and Bank of America is predicting the worst year for bonds since 1949.

In commodities, Brent crude is trading at US$120.65/barrel and iron ore rose by 3% to US$150.80/tonne.

Bitcoin meanwhile saw a big jump by 3% to US$46,000 at 8.30am AEDT.

The crypto surged after Russia said it would consider accepting payments in Bitcoin for its oil and gas from “friendly” countries.

ASX IPO this week

According to the ASX, set to list this week are:

Far East Gold (ASX:FEG), a minerals explorer, raised $12m at 20c a share.

International Graphite Limited (ASX:IG6), a minerals exploration and development, raised $10m at 20c a share.

Lord Resources Limited (ASX:LRD), a minerals exploration and development company, raised $4.5m at 20c a share.

Top End Energy (ASX:TEE), exploring for oil, gas and other associated product streams (including helium and hydrogen), raised $6.4m at 20c a share.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

PainCek (ASX:PCK)
The smart phone-based pain assessment company announced that Summerset Holdings is rolling out PainChek’s solution across all of its 24 NZ care centres, after a successful 6-month pilot. The contract is the first rollout of PainChek in NZ. No figures were disclosed.

Douugh Ltd (ASX:DOU)
The fintech has secured access to $20m in discretionary equity funding from a US investment fund, Long State Investment. The facility will be used to support Douugh’s continued scaling in the US market.

Lucapa Diamond (ASX:LOM)
After accounting for mining depletion of 24,595 carats during 2021 calendar year, the alluvial exploration activities undertaken during the year increased the Lulo Diamond Resource in-situ carats by 11% to ~151,000 carats, Lucapa said.

Green Technology Metals (ASX:GT1)
GT1 has exercised its right to acquire a further 29% interest in the Ontario Lithium Projects in Canada. This will take GT1’s Joint Venture (JV) interest in the OLP to 80% (from its current 51%). Ardiden holds the other 20%.

Podium Minerals (ASX:POD)
Assay results from 31 holes (700 samples) to date confirm high-grade, high-value rhodium (Rh) at Parks Reef, with a total of 2,100 historic samples awaiting assay results. So far, results include: 4m at 1.92g/t 3E PGM, 0.14g/t Rh and 0.08g/t Iridium (Ir) for a total of 2.14g/t 5E PGM from 28m.

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