Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Thursday

Wall Street climbs despite rising inflation

US stock markets were mainly higher overnight, as investors digested the latest round of inflation data.

US CPI rose by 0.4% in September, pushing annual inflation to 5.4%.

Rising inflation continues to provide the framework for ongoing debate around the timeline for US monetary policy tightening.

The S&P 500 rose by 0.3%, the Dow Jones was flat, and tech heavy Nasdaq was up 0.73%.

The treasury yield curve responded to the inflation report by flattening, with 2-year yield rising by 1bp and the 10-year yield falling 4bp.

Earning season goes underway in the US, and in the Financial sector Blackrock and JP Morgan’s third quarter earnings both beat estimates.

Oil prices retreated again overnight as OPEC downgrades demand, with Brent crude falling modestly by another 0.3% to US$83.18/barrel.

Benchmark crude is currently still at a three-year high, with Goldman Sachs expecting it to hit US$90 by year end.

The spot iron ore price also retreated by another 4% after its by 6% dive yesterday, and is now trading at to US$123.60/t.

Despite the downward trend, newly listed iron ore play Equinox Resources (ASX:EQN) surged 35% on its first day of trading.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is back at the US$57k level and is trading at US$57,500 at 8:00am AEST this morning, from the US$55,500level on Wednesday.

New data published this week by the UK’s Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance shows that after the Chinese recent crackdown, the US has now surpassed China for the largest share of the world’s bitcoin mining, with 35.4 per cent of the global hash rate as per the end of August.

ASX 200 to open higher on Thursday

The ASX 200 looks set to open higher this morning, with futures markets (December contracts) pointing up by 0.69% at 8:30am AEST.

Yesterday, the Aussie benchmark was unable to break free from its recent shackles, edging lower by 0.11%.

Uranium stocks were once again the talk of the town, but the big iron ore miners dragged on the resources index.

Later today, all eyes will be on the Australian Bureau of Stats’ September jobs data.

The CBA economists expect that the data will show around 200,000 job ‘losses’ nationally, with the unemployment rate lifting to 5% from a 12.5 year low of 4.5%.

And at 9am AEDT, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Guy Debelle delivers an online speech – ‘Climate Risks and the Australian Financial System’ – to the CFA Australian Investment Conference.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Harmoney Corp (ASX:HMY)
The fintech lender delivered a record quarter, with approximately $60m in new originations, up 389% on pcp. Australian new customer originations also grew to $31 million, up 885% versus pcp.

Douugh Limited (ASX:DOU)
The fintech has partnered with Zero Hash to launch an integrated crypto wallet and trading capabilities into the Douugh app. The partnership will initially allow just US customers to buy and sell cryptos in the US through the Crypto Jar feature on the Douugh platform.

Adveritas (ASX:AV1)
The digital ad fraud prevention specialist says that its TrafficGuard platform is now live on the Google Cloud Marketplace. TrafficGuard will now be marketed worldwide to all of Google Cloud’s  customers that use Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.

Lotus Resources (ASX:LOT)
Lotus has acquired the 6Mlb U3O8 Livingstonia Uranium Project in Malawi. Consideration for the acquisition was US$25,000 or US$0.004 / lb U3O8 of contained resource. Lotus says this acquisition increases its mineral resource base, as well as having the potential to become a future satellite operation for the company.

Lucapa Diamond (ASX:LOM)
The company reported a significant upgrade to its CY21 full year attributable guidance, which sees its full year EBITDA increase around 45% to between A$26 – 28 million, following solid operational performances from both the Lulo and Mothae mines.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Adveritas is a Stockhead advertisers, it did not sponsor this article.