On Wednesday, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) had another poor session and dropped into the red. The benchmark index was down 0.4% to 7,828.3 points.
Will the market be able to bounce back from this on Thursday? Here are five things to watch:
The Australian share market looks set to jump on Thursday following a strong night of trade on Wall Street. According to the latest SPI futures, the ASX 200 is expected to open the day 55 point or 0.7% higher this morning. In late trade in the United States, the Dow Jones is up 1.1%, the S&P 500 is up 1.35%, and the Nasdaq is 1.8% higher.
ASX 200 energy shares Beach Energy Ltd (ASX: BPT) and Santos Ltd (ASX: STO) could have a decent session after oil prices pushed higher overnight. According to Bloomberg, the WTI crude oil price is up 0.5% to US$67.24 a barrel and the Brent crude oil price is up 0.5% to US$70.90 a barrel. Traders may believe that oil has been oversold following recent weakness.
Another group of ASX 200 shares will be going ex-dividend this morning and are likely to trade lower. This includes infant formula company A2 Milk Company Ltd (ASX: A2M) for its maiden dividend, hearing solution giant Cochlear Ltd (ASX: COH), and travel and transport company Kelsian Group Ltd (ASX: KLS). The latter is paying eligible shareholders an 8 cents per share fully franked interim dividend next month on 23 April.
It could be a good session for ASX 200 gold shares Newmont Corporation (ASX: NEM) and Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST) on Thursday after the gold price pushed higher again overnight. According to CNBC, the gold futures price is up 0.4% to US$3,052.6 an ounce. The gold price rose after the US Federal Reserve signalled that it expects two further rate cuts in 2025.
Goldman Sachs has been busy looking over the data centre market and remains as positive as ever. Its two top picks in Australia are Nextdc Ltd (ASX: NXT) and Digico Infrastructure Reit Stapled Unit (ASX: DGT). The broker said: "In Australia, we are Buy-rated on NextDC and DigiCo, both of which have network dense facilities in Australia that we see as well positioned for cloud and inference growth, while expanding globally into the larger and faster growing markets of Asia (NXT) and the US (DGT)."
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