Market Highlights: Meta rout, ECB hike, and 5 ASX small caps to watch on Friday

The ASX is set to open lower on Friday
Mega tech earnings dominated the headlines on Wall St overnight
The ECB hiked its rate by another 75bp

Aussie shares are set to open lower on Friday. At 8am AEST, the ASX 200 Dec futures contract was pointing down by 0.40%.

In New York overnight, US stocks were mixed as mega tech earnings dictated investor sentiment.

The Dow Jones finished higher by 0.6%, but both the S&P 500 and tech heavy Nasdaq were down by 0.6% and 1.6% respectively.

Amazon tumbled 4% as it missed sales forecast for Q3 by a slight margin (US$127.1 bn vs $127.46 bn forecast).

What got investors concerned however was its Q4 net sales forecast of between $US140 billion ~ $US148 billion, versus the market consensus of $US155.15 billion according to Refinitiv data.

Apple reported a quarterly revenue of $US90.1 billion, an 8% increase on pcp and above estimates of $US88.9 billion. Despite the upbeat numbers and iPhone sales record for the quarter, Apple share price also slipped 3%.

Meta collapsed by 25% overnight as its revenue fell for the second straight quarter, wiping out US$90bn from its market cap.

“It looks like Sheryl Sandberg’s departure was well-timed as this ship is clearly sinking,” said OANDA analyst Edward Moya.

In economic news, the ECB delivered its third major consecutive rate increase as it raised the Euro cash rate by 75bp last night.

The US economy appears to have bounced back from two negative GDP readings with a solid 2.6% improvement.

“The strong headline number is welcome news, but when you dig into the numbers it is clear that an economic slowdown is here,” said Moya.

In other markets, iron ore crashed 6% to US$82.50 a tonne. The iron ore price has been slipping on slowing demand from China, who accounts for 70% of global iron ore imports.

Bitcoin rose 2% to US$20,363.

Looking ahead to today, Australian PPI (producer price index) for Q3 is due to be released.

5 ASX small caps to watch today

BeforePay (ASX:B4P)
BeforePay saw continued strong growth in Q1, with pay advances of $139.2m, up 153% from the pcp and up 30% on the last quarter. The company’s bottom line was an EBITDA loss of $2.34m, down 28% from the pcp driven by NTM (net transaction margin) and reduced operating expenses.

Splitit Payments (ASX:SPT)
Splitit made good progress in Q3, executing its growth strategy laid out earlier this year. The company saw continued improvement in NTM of 1.49% for the quarter, up 1.23% on the prior year, and up 0.16% on the prior quarter.

Tennant Minerals (ASX:TMS)
A massive chalcopyrite (copper-sulphide) was intersected at the Bluebird Project. The drilling has intersected a 7m zone containing 60% massive copper-sulphides (chalcopyrite and minor chalcocite) within a 32.5m intensely haematite-copper mineralised zone.

The GO2 People (ASX:GO2)
The recruitment and training company enjoyed continued momentum across its various service offerings in Q1 with another record quarter of cash receipts from customers at $21.63 million, equating to an annualised run rate of $86.5 million.

Trek Metals (ASX:TKM)
A data review by independent consultant CSA Global suggests that the observed mineralisation at Valley of the Gossans (VOG) is likely to be of epithermal origin, with the system potentially capable of hosting significant precious metals. The model indicates that there is a greater chance of precious metals occurring higher in the system along strike at Conductor ‘A’.