On Monday the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) started the week on a disappointing note. The benchmark index finished the day with a decline of 0.4% to 6,180.2 points.
Will the market be able to bounce back on Tuesday? Here are five things to watch:
ASX futures pointing higher.
The Australian share market looks set to bounce back on Tuesday after a very positive night of trade on Wall Street. According to the latest SPI futures, the ASX 200 is poised to open the day 0.5% or 33 points higher. Late in the U.S. session the Dow Jones is up 0.7%, the S&P 500 is 1.4% higher, and the Nasdaq has surged 2% higher.
Oil prices surge.
Beach Energy Ltd (ASX: BPT) and Woodside Petroleum Limited (ASX: WPL) shares will be on watch on Tuesday after oil prices surged higher overnight. According to Bloomberg, the WTI crude oil price pushed 1.3% higher to US$56.82 a barrel and the Brent crude oil price stormed 1.4% higher to US$66.64 a barrel. Prices rose after Saudi Arabia stood by OPEC output cuts.
Appen shares could return.
The Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) share price could be on the move today if it returns from its trading halt. Appen's shares were halted whilst it launched a fully underwritten placement of A$285 million at an offer price of A$21.50 per share. These funds will be used to acquire San Francisco-based Figure Eight Technologies. Figure Eight is a best in class machine learning software platform which uses highly automated annotation tools to transform unstructured text, image, audio and video data into customised high quality artificial intelligence training data.
Shares going ex-dividend.
A number of shares are trading ex-dividend this morning and are likely to trade lower. These include mining services company Ausdrill Limited (ASX: ASL), media giant News Corp (ASX: NWS), gold miner Regis Resources Limited (ASX: RRL), and scrap metal company Sims Metal Management Ltd (ASX: SGM).
Telstra strike.
Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) will be in the spotlight on Tuesday when thousands of its employees strike over pay increases. According to the AFR, an estimated 5000 staff members will strike after Telstra refused to improve on its 1.5% annual pay increase offer. The employees, primarily from maintenance roles, are believed to be looking for annual increases of at least 3%.
