Market highlights and 5 ASX small caps to watch on Tuesday

The ASX is set to open lower on Tuesday
Overnight, bank and tech stocks weighed on Wall Street
The RBA will release its July meeting minutes this afternoon

Local shares are set to open lower today. At 8am AEST, the ASX 200 July futures is pointing down by 0.40%.

Overnight, Wall Street slipped as all three major indices – the S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq – finished around 1% lower.

Bank stocks lagged as Bank of America reported that net income had dropped by 13% to US$6.1 billion in Q2.

Some experts say that bank stocks could slide further as a hit from a potential recession outweighs the lure of cheap valuations. The S&P 500 Bank Index has fallen almost 25% this year, compared to the 20% drop in the S&P 500.

Tech stocks also dragged down Nasdaq overnight after Apple became the latest Big Tech to reevaluate its headcount, according to a Bloomberg report.

In recent weeks, tech companies like Netflix, Coinbase and Tesla have announced their intention to reduce staff numbers.

Meanwhile, global oil prices climbed by 4% overnight with the benchmark Brent crude price bouncing back to $US105.20 a barrel.

To combat this volatility in energy prices, Japan has said it will several mothballed nuclear power stations in preparation for the winter.

“Nations everywhere should be looking at this solution right now,” said OANDA’s senior market analyst, Jeff Halley.

”Especially as North America looks as far away as ever from getting its act together on gas and oil, pipelines to move it, and refineries to make it into energy and fertiliser etc for the world,” he added.

Uranium miner Paladin Energy (ASX:PDN) announced this morning that it will also restart its Langer Heinrich Mine to production.

Base metals rose on Monday, with nickel LME (London Metal Exchange) futures climbing by 6%, and and copper futures by 3%.

This came as Chinese regulators moved to avert a potential crisis in the country’s real estate market.

Yesterday, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) encouraged lenders to extend loans to certain real estate projects to ease risks from a widening mortgage payment boycott.

It was reported earlier that homebuyers across China are refusing to keep making their mortgage payments for stalled property projects.

To crypto, where Bitcoin rose by 3% in the last 24 hours to $US21,719 at 8.30am AEST.

Later today, the RBA will release the minutes of its July meeting which Christian is going to read word for word – which will give him a sense of a job well done – and us a sense of where we’re headed as energy prices and inflation continue to dominate the market.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Quickfee (ASX:QFE)
The fintech lender delivered a record quarter of Total Transaction Values (TTV) processed in the US, up 38% to US$319 million. Australian lending in Q4 FY22 was also up 19% to $13 million. The company says it’s on track to achieve run-rate profitability by the end of FY23.

Harmoney (ASX:HMY)
The non-bank lender has delivered FY22 Cash NPAT profitability on a proforma basis. Its proforma loan book has reached $685 million in FY22, up 37% on pcp. The Australian loan book grew to $287 million, up 113% on pcp.

X2M Connect (ASX:X2M)
X2M has secured five new customers in the South Korean water monitoring market, with the combined value of the contracts totalling almost $2 million. Orders across the X2M group for revenue recognition in H1FY23 has now exceed $9.6 million.

Metals Australia (ASX:MLS)
Diamond drillhole has intersected thick, lithium bearing pegmatite to >120m depth within an over 2km corridor of lithium intersections. The final set of reverse circulation (RC) drilling results include: [email protected]% Li2O, 0.27% Rb from 62m (downhole).

Veris (ASX:VRS)
The industrial advisory company says it has secured forward contracts in excess of $56 million to be executed over the next 12 months, while the unsecured project pipeline has a weighted value of ~$190 million over the next 24 months. This follows its revenue of $92.4m for the full year of FY22.