On Thursday the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) had a bit of a mixed day and finished the day with a slight decline to 6,244.5 points.
Will the market be able to finish the week on a high on Friday? Here are five things to watch:
ASX futures pointing higher.
The Australian share market is expected to open the day higher on Friday. According to the latest SPI futures, the market is poised to lift 0.44% or 27 points at the open. This is despite a mixed night of trade on Wall Street which saw the Dow Jones rise 0.4%, the S&P 500 fall 0.3%, and the Nasdaq tumble 1% lower. Facebook shares fell 19% and weighed heavily on the latter two markets.
Oil prices have continued to rise.
The shares of Santos Ltd (ASX: STO) and Woodside Petroleum Limited (ASX: WPL) could be on the rise today after oil prices continued to push higher. According to Bloomberg, the WTI Crude oil price has climbed 0.35% to US$69.54 a barrel and the Brent crude oil price stormed 0.8% higher to US$74.51 a barrel.
Atlassian smashes expectations.
While Facebook's results and guidance may have underwhelmed, Australian tech star Atlassian's results certainly didn't. In after hours trade the tech company's shares are up 22% after beating expectations with quarterly revenue of US$243.8 million. The company also announced the sale of its HipChat corporate chat software to rival Slack.
GUD Holdings results.
Later this morning GUD Holdings Limited (ASX: GUD) is expected to release its results. With the retail conglomerate's shares up almost 15% in 2018, the market will be looking for a strong result that supports this impressive share price gain. The market is expecting earnings per share of 64.1 cents.
Spookfish takeover offer.
After the market closed on Thursday geospatial imagery products and services provider Spookfish Ltd (ASX: SFI) announced the receipt of a takeover approach. Its largest shareholder, Eagle View Technologies, has agreed to acquire all shares it does not already own for a cash price of 8 cents per share. This is a 56.9% premium to the last close price and values Spookfish's fully diluted equity at approximately A$121.6 million. Just a touch over a year ago its shares were priced at 10 cents.
