Market Highlights and 5 ASX Small Caps to watch on Thursday

The US Fed plans to reduce its bond back by US$95bn a month
Nasdaq plunged another 2%
ASX to open lower this morning

Wall Street skids on US Fed’s plan

Aussie shares are poised to follow Wall Street into the red today, with the ASX 200 April futures pointing down by 0.1% at 8am AEDT.

Overnight, US stocks were battered as minutes from the last US Fed meeting revealed plans to reduce its massive bond holdings at $US95 billion a month.

The minutes also showed that Fed officials had wanted to hike rates by 50bp in March, but decided for 25bp due to the Ukraine crisis.

[CHART] US interest rates trended higher overnight after minutes from the latest Fed Reserve meeting signalled a reduction of bond holdings at a maximum pace of US$95bln a month. US 10yr yields rose by 3pts to near 2.59%; 2yr yields fell by 3 points to near 2.48%. Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/TWvqZoJzYC

— CommSec (@CommSec) April 6, 2022

Tech heavy Nasdaq fell by another 2%, bringing its total loss in two days to almost 5%. The S&P 500 was down 0.97%, while the Dow slipped 0.42%.

Fresh sanctions have been imposed on Russia after war crime reports in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

But oil prices retreated 5% overnight, as member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said they will release a combined 120 million additional barrels of oil from strategic reserves.

The Aussie dollar retreated to US75.17c after scaling to over US76c on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has tumbled to $43,850 at 8.30am AEDT, from the $45,900 level yesterday. Not great timing for attendees at the Australian Financial Review’s cryptocurrency conference.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

AdAlta (ASX:1AD)
AdAlta has received an Indian patent for its lead program, AD-214. The new patent protects the i-body sequence used in AD-214, as well as its pharmaceutical compositions and derivatives. India is the sixth country to grant a patent for AD-214 after Australia, US, Japan, China and Singapore.

CV Check (ASX:CV1)
CV Check’s revenues continue to grow in the March 2022 quarter, rising by 64% on pcp to $6.9m. This takes its total year‐to‐date revenue to $19.7m, up 77% on the pcp.

Lodestar Minerals (ASX:LSR)
Lodestar announced positive results from re-assaying of previous RC drilling in the northern tenements of the Nepean Nickel Project. Results include 1m at 0.88% Li2O, from 78m within 4m at 0.35% Li2O from 78m. Auroch Minerals (ASX:AOU) owns an 80% interest, and is the operator of the project.

EVZ Limited (ASX:EVZ)
EVZ Engineering has secured three new bulk storage tank contracts in the liquid fuels, water storage and defence sectors. The total value is around A$17m, and will be commencing in Q4 FY22 with completion expected in FY23.

Charger Metals (ASX:CHR)
Charger has confirmed massive sulphide targets at its Coates Nickel-Copper-PGE Project near Julimar. Maiden drill programme will commence shortly, with five diamond core drill holes planned to test conductor targets.