Equities

Global stocks headed into a jittery final session of the month as an outage at exchange operator CME Group halted trading in many futures on currencies, commodities, Treasuries and stocks, further draining market liquidity.

The outage at CME data centres came with U.S. investors due to return from the Thanksgiving holiday for a shortened session on Friday.

Wall Street futures were in positive territory after CME restored service. At 8:45 a.m. ET, Dow futures were up 0.17 per cent, S&P 500 futures rose 0.21 per cent and Nasdaq futures were 0.32 per cent higher.

TSX futures were steady as investors eyed domestic GDP data.

Canada’s economy grew at a much faster pace than expected in the third quarter as crude oil exports and government spending boosted over all economic activity even as business investments and household consumption disappointed, the data showed. The annual rate came in at 2.6 per cent, beating 0.5-per-cent growth estimates.

U.S. stock and bond markets will close in early afternoon after the Thanksgiving holiday yesterday.

“Usually you expect volatility in September and October, we’ve had it in November, but recovered most of it,” Lombard Odier economist Samy Chaar said.

“We were pricing the probability of a [Fed interest rate] cut in December of around 30 per cent and we’re now over 80 per cent. And that, I think, is a very strong reason for the month-end rally,” he said.

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Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was up 0.12 per cent. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.13 per cent, Germany’s DAX gained 0.21 per cent and France’s CAC 40 advanced 0.16 per cent.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 0.17 per cent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slid 0.34 per cent.

Commodities

Brent crude oil futures were largely unchanged as drawn-out Russia-Ukraine peace talks kept geopolitical risks elevated, while traders kept one eye on the outcome of an OPEC+ meeting on Sunday for clues about potential output changes.

Front-month Brent crude futures for January, which expire on Friday, were down 0.2 per cent to US$63.20 a barrel. The more active February contract traded at US$62.80, down 7 US cents.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures resumed trading after being frozen due to the CME system outage, opening at US$58.90 a barrel, up 0.43 per cent.

“The market is caught between there being no immediate sanctions relief for Russia, but as slow as negotiations are, there being hope for a future settlement,” said PVM Oil Associates’ analyst John Evans.

In other commodities, spot gold rose 0.4 per cent to US$4,174.15 an ounce. U.S. gold futures are trading again after the CME outage and are up 0.3 per cent at US$4,215.30.

Currencies and bonds

The Canadian dollar strengthened against its U.S. counterpart.

The day range on the loonie was 71.16 US cents to 71.47 US cents in early trading. The Canadian dollar was up about 0.11 per cent against the greenback over the past month.

The U.S. dollar index, which weighs the greenback against a group of currencies, advanced 0.04 per cent to 99.63.

The euro dropped 0.11 per cent to US$1.1583. The British pound declined 0.1 per cent to US$1.3228.

In bonds, the yield on the U.S. 10-year note was last down at 3.997 per cent.

Economic news

Japan jobless rate, retail sales and industrial production

Germany unemployment, retail sales and CPI

8:30 a.m. ET: Canada’s real GDP for the third quarter, which grew an annualized 2.6 per cent, beating the 0.5 per cent estimate.

8:30 a.m. ET: Canada’s monthly real GDP for October.

Also: Ottawa’s budget balance

With Reuters and The Canadian Press