expanding \u200bMiddle East conflict<\/a> weighed on market sentiment.<\/p>\nWall Street futures were mixed as the conflict entered its sixth day, stoking fears of inflationary pressures that could complicate the Federal Reserve\u2019s monetary policy decisions.<\/p>\n
TSX futures edged lower even as commodity prices climbed.<\/p>\n
In Canada, investors are getting results from Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Maple Leaf Foods Inc., Methanex Corp. and Spin Master Corp.<\/p>\n
On Wall Street, markets are watching earnings from Costco Wholesale Corp., Marvell Technology Inc. and Aecon Group Inc.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeadlines do not point to a near resolution of the Middle East conflict, meaning the risk of further stress remains very much in play,\u201d Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, wrote in a note.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome investors appear willing to jump to the final chapter ahead of time \u2013 which is why we see strong gains on the smallest hints of good news. But there may still be more pain on the menu before a convincing rebound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was up 0.32 per cent in morning trading. Britain\u2019s FTSE 100 rose 0.26 per cent, Germany\u2019s DAX gained 0.18 per cent and France\u2019s CAC 40 advanced 0.26 per cent. <\/p>\n
In Asia, Japan\u2019s Nikkei closed 1.9 per cent higher, while Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng advanced 0.28 per cent. <\/p>\n
Commodities<\/p>\n
Oil prices were on the rise, extending a rally as the \u200bescalating U.S.-Israeli war with Iran continued to \u200cdisrupt supplies, prompting some major producers to cut output and others to take measures to ensure supply security.<\/p>\n
Brent crude was up 2 per cent at US$83.05 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained 2.48 per cent to US$76.51.<\/p>\n
In other commodities, spot gold was up 0.4 per cent at US$5,156.11 an ounce. U.S. gold futures for April delivery advanced 0.7 per cent to US$5,168.20.<\/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 73.14 US cents to 73.38 US cents in early trading. The Canadian dollar was up about 0.55 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, rose 0.22 per cent to 98.98. <\/p>\n
The euro declined 0.19 per cent to US$1.1614. The British pound slid 0.14 per cent to US$1.3355. <\/p>\n
In bonds, the yield on the U.S. 10-year note was last up at 4.126 per cent.<\/p>\n
Economic news<\/p>\n
Euro zone\u2019s retail sales<\/p>\n
8:30 a.m. ET: U.S. initial jobless claims for week of Feb. 28. Estimate is 217,000, up 5,000 from the previous week.<\/p>\n
8:30 a.m. ET: U.S. productivity and unit labour costs for Q4. The Street expects annualized rate increases of 1.6 per cent and 2.2 per cent, respectively.<\/p>\n
8:30 a.m. ET: U.S. import prices for January. Consensus is a rise of 0.2 er cent from December and down 0.1 per cent year-over-year.<\/p>\n
With Reuters and The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Equities Global markets were muted as \u2060an expanding \u200bMiddle East conflict weighed on market sentiment. Wall Street futures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3244,49,48,3245,3237,3240,2640,3242,3246,166,3247,44,3241,3239,3243,3238],"class_list":["post-515863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-bonds","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-dollar","tag-dow-jones","tag-equities","tag-futures","tag-gold","tag-loonie","tag-nasdaq","tag-newnewsletter","tag-news","tag-oil","tag-sd","tag-silver","tag-tsx"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}