impose a blockade<\/a> around the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\nWall Street futures were in the red after major U.S. markets closed mixed on Friday.<\/p>\n
TSX futures pointed lower after Canada\u2019s main stock market closed up in the previous session.<\/p>\n
On Wall Street, markets are watching earnings from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Fastenal Co.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarkets, as the week gets under way, are trading in rather \u2018textbook\u2019 risk-off fashion, as participants reach once more for the \u2018conflict escalation\u2019 playbook,\u201d Pepperstone strategist Michael Brown said.<\/p>\n
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.76 per cent in morning trading. Britain\u2019s FTSE 100 declined 0.43 per cent, Germany\u2019s DAX fell 1.02 per cent and France\u2019s CAC 40 gave back 1.06 per cent. <\/p>\n
In Asia, Japan\u2019s Nikkei closed 0.74 per cent lower, while Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng slid 0.9 per cent. <\/p>\n
Commodities<\/p>\n
Oil prices jumped back above $100 a barrel as the U.S. Navy prepared to block ships to and from Iran via the Strait of Hormuz, a move that could restrict Iranian oil exports, after Washington and Tehran failed to reach a deal to end the war.<\/p>\n
Brent crude futures gained 8.3 per cent to US$103.10 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was up 8.5 per cent at US$104.80 a barrel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe announced U.S. blockade marks an admission that the ceasefire\u2019s central premise – at least as interpreted by the U.S. \u2013 which was the reopening of the Strait, is untenable for now,\u201d Nordic bank SEB analyst Erik Meyersson said.<\/p>\n
In other commodities, spot gold was down 0.4 per cent to US$4,730.75 an ounce. U.S. gold futures for June delivery fell 0.7 per cent to US$4,753.30.<\/p>\n
Currencies and bonds<\/p>\n
The Canadian dollar weakened against its U.S. counterpart.<\/p>\n
The day range on the loonie was 72.05 US cents to 72.25 US cents in early trading. The Canadian dollar was down about 1.15 per cent against the greenback over the past month. <\/p>\n
The U.S. dollar index, which weighs the greenback against a group of currencies, gained 0.31 per cent to 98.96. The U.S. dollar traded at $1.3848. <\/p>\n
The euro fell 0.33 per cent to US$1.1687. The British pound dropped 0.3 per cent to US$1.3423. <\/p>\n
In bonds, the yield on the U.S. 10-year note was little changed at 4.339 per cent. <\/p>\n
Economic news<\/p>\n
China\u2019s aggregate yuan financing, new yuan loans and trade surplus<\/p>\n
8:30 a.m. ET: Canadian building permits for February.<\/p>\n
10 a.m. ET: U.S. existing home sales for March. The Street is projecting an annualized rate decline of 0.7 per cent.<\/p>\n
With Reuters and The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Equities Global markets declined as expectations of a swift resolution to the Middle East conflict faded following the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1634,17,1635,1627,1629,1630,1632,1636,1448,1637,1631,1628,1633,818],"class_list":{"0":"post-2459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-bonds","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-dollar","11":"tag-dow-jones","12":"tag-equities","13":"tag-futures","14":"tag-gold","15":"tag-loonie","16":"tag-nasdaq","17":"tag-newnewsletter","18":"tag-oil","19":"tag-sd","20":"tag-silver","21":"tag-tsx"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}