Market highlights and 5 ASX small caps to watch on Tuesday

The ASX will open slightly lower on Tuesday
US Senate passed the US$430 billion Inflation Reduction Act
Earnings season continues for ASX large caps

Local shares are set to open lower today. At 8am AEDT, the ASX 200 August futures is pointing down by 0.20%.

Major indexes on Wall Street finished flat overnight as investors digested the news that US$430 billion Inflation Reduction Act had passed the Senate on a vote of 51-50.

The Act promises big funding for climate and clean energy policies, and is set to lower drug prices and raise some corporate taxes to fight climate change.

”Investor appetite for risk was healthy early from the news on American clean power jobs, and on a new EV tax credit,”said Oanda analyst Edward Moya.

But chipmaker Nvidia reminded us of the troubling macro environment as supply chain issues persist. Nvidia’s stock tumbled 6% overnight as the company reported a miss for Q2.

“As we navigate these challenges, we remain focused on the once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvent computing for the era of AI,” Nvidia CEO Jansen Huang said.

New data released overnight showed that consumer inflation expectations fell from 6.8% to 6.2% in July vs survey of 6.7%.

The data came following the strong non-farm payrolls on Friday, which increased by 528,000 in July versus the forecast of a 250,000 increase.

Over the weekend, New York Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said she doesn’t expect inflation to come down anytime soon, and sees the need to keep pushing rates higher.

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly echoed those sentiments, saying the increases are “far from done.”

To cryptos, where Ark Investment’s Cathie Wood has reduced her stake in crypto exchange Coinbase, after selling slightly over 1.41 million shares worth about US$75m last month according to fresh Bloomberg data.

Wood cited regulatory “uncertainty” in the crypto world as reason for her decision.

Bitcoin rose by 3% in the last 24 hours and is trading at US$23,800 at 8am AEST.

Meanwhile, global oil prices were higher by 2% overnight after America’s largest oil & gas producers defied calls by Biden to lift output.

Back home, earnings season continues for ASX large caps. Today we will see results from NewsCorp, NAB, REA Group, Coronado Mining and Megaport.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

Apollo Minerals (ASX:AON)
Apollo reported further results of shallow, high-grade zinc-lead mineralisation from its 2022 drilling campaign at Dikaki within the Kroussou zinc-lead Project. Significant intercepts in recent drilling include: 10.3m @ 4.0% Zn+Pb from 25.4m within a broader zone of 15.3m @ 3.0% Zn+Pb.

Horizon Minerals (ASX:HRZ)
Richmond Vanadium Tech (RVT) will invest up to $5m into Australian energy company Ultra Power Systems as part of its ASX IPO. RVT will obtain the right to supply all vanadium offtake to UPS, subject to cost, quality and timing. Horizon owns 25% of RVT.

Reckon (ASX:RKN)
The accounting software company reported bottom line normalised NPAT of $6m, up 5% on the pcp. Annual recurring revenues (ARR) of $36m, marking a 5% increase on the pcp. Fully franked interim dividend was 3c per share.

Toro Energy (ASX:TOE)
A fourth zone of massive nickel (Ni) sulphide has been discovered on Toro’s Dusty Nickel Project, located approximately 400m SSE and along strike of the recent Jumping Jack discovery. The discovery has been named Dimma. The Dimma intersection consists of 3.6m of massive Ni-sulphides from 244.1m downhole in diamond drill hole TED41, with almost all of this intersection being massive in nature.

OpenPay (ASX:OPY)
The payments tech company reported a record TTV (time to value) of $39.9 million,an increase of 58% YoY. OPY also saw continued strong revenue of $3 million, 73% growth YoY. Revenue Margin was 7.3%, compared to 6.8% in July 2021.