On Wednesday the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) dropped lower despite solid gains from many energy and materials shares. It finished the day down 0.3% at 6,247.6 points.
Will the market be able to bounce back on Thursday? Here are five things that could shape the day's trade:
ASX futures pointing higher.
According to the latest SPI futures, the local market is expected to follow Wall Street higher and open the day up 0.15% or 9 points on Thursday. Overnight the Dow Jones rose 0.7%, the S&P 500 climbed 0.9%, and the Nasdaq jumped 1.2%. The latter was driven by solid gains from FAANG stocks.
Facebook set to plunge.
The Nasdaq certainly will struggle to push higher tonight, though. In after hours trade the Facebook share price is down a whopping 20% following the release of its latest quarterly results. Although the social media giant posted a 42% lift in revenue, it fell short of the Bloomberg consensus estimate by around US$120 million. Furthermore, on its earnings call the company advised that it expected a slowdown in its revenue growth for the rest of the year.
Macquarie annual general meeting.
Later today Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) will hold its annual general meeting. There is speculation that the company's habit of under-promising and over-delivering could result in an increase to its guidance being made today. The investment bank has previous guided to earnings being flat in FY 2019.
Oil prices continue to push higher.
Energy producers such as Beach Energy Ltd (ASX: BPT) and Santos Ltd (ASX: STO) could have a solid day of trade ahead of them after oil prices continued to climb. According to Bloomberg, the WTI crude oil price rose 1.1% to US$69.26 a barrel and the Brent crude oil price climbed 1.2% to US$74.35 a barrel. A decline in U.S. crude inventories has been the catalyst for these gains.
Altura Mining makes retractions.
Altura Mining Ltd (ASX: AJM) shares will be on watch today after the lithium miner was forced to retract forecast financial information about peer group companies from a recent presentation after being quizzed by the ASX. The company acknowledged that it did not have a reasonable basis consistent with the requirements of ASIC Regulatory Guide 170 for the forecasts.
