Equities<\/p>\n
Global markets were mixed with investors dialing back risk ahead of a crucial weekend that could pave the way for a near-term resolution to the Middle East war.<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump expressed confidence that an agreement \u2060could soon \u200bbe reached to end the conflict and urged the Tehran-aligned Hezbollah group to hold its fire as a 10-day truce went into effect between Lebanon and Israel.<\/p>\n
Trump said the next meeting between U.S. and Iranian negotiators could take place at the weekend.<\/p>\n
Wall Street futures were in positive territory after slight gains on major U.S. markets yesterday.<\/p>\n
TSX futures edged higher after Canada\u2019s main stock market closed modestly down yesterday.<\/p>\n
On Wall Street, markets are watching earnings from Fifth Third Bancorp, State Street Corp. and Truist Financial Corp.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think equity markets are remaining positive and some solid U.S. earnings have helped, but – and it\u2019s a big but – we need to see some concrete evidence that peace is going to last,\u201d said Nick Twidale, chief market strategist at ATFX Global.<\/p>\n
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was up 0.17 per cent in morning trading. Britain\u2019s FTSE 100 retreated 0.07 per cent, Germany\u2019s DAX advanced 0.6 per cent and France\u2019s CAC 40 gained 0.4 per cent.<\/p>\n
In Asia, Japan\u2019s Nikkei closed 1.75 per cent lower, while Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng slid 0.89 per cent. <\/p>\n
Commodities<\/p>\n
Oil prices dropped on optimism the Middle East conflict could be nearing an end after a 10-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel took effect and Trump said the U.S. and Iran may meet for talks on the weekend.<\/p>\n
Brent crude futures declined 1.62 per cent to US$97.78 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 1.844 per cent to US$92.95 a barrel.<\/p>\n
In other commodities, spot gold eased 0.1 per cent to US$4,783.91 an ounce. U.S. gold futures for June slipped 0.1 per cent to US$4,805.20.<\/p>\n
Currencies and bonds<\/p>\n
The Canadian dollar strengthened against its U.S. counterpart. <\/p>\n
The day range on the loonie was 72.93 US cents to 73.16 US cents in early trading. The Canadian dollar was up about 0.39 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, dipped 0.1 per cent to 98.12. The U.S. dollar traded at $1.3676. <\/p>\n
The euro rose 0.1 per cent to US$1.1795. The British pound climbed 0.06 per cent to US$1.3534. <\/p>\n
In bonds, the yield on the U.S. 10-year note was last down at 4.303 per cent.<\/p>\n
Economic news<\/p>\n
Euro zone\u2019s trade surplus<\/p>\n
8:15 a.m. ET: Canadian housing starts for March. Estimate is an annualized rate rise of 1.6 per cent.<\/p>\n
8:30 a.m. ET: Canada\u2019s international securities transactions for February.<\/p>\n
8:30 a.m. ET: Canada\u2019s household and mortgage credit for February.<\/p>\n
With Reuters and The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Equities Global markets were mixed with investors dialing back risk ahead of a crucial weekend that could pave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7471,"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-7470","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\/7470","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=7470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}