inflation numbers for March<\/a>, which came in softer than expected.<\/p>\nIn Canada, investors are getting results from PrairieSky Royalty Ltd.<\/p>\n
On Wall Street, markets are watching earnings from Steel Dynamics Inc., Rio Tinto ADR and Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe critical barometer of geopolitical risk has been distilled into one data point: The number of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d said Bob Savage, head of markets macro strategy at BNY.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeace talks matter, but the immediate focus is on oil and other supply shortages driving inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 1.04 per cent in morning trading. Britain\u2019s FTSE 100 declined 0.65 per cent, Germany\u2019s DAX fell 1.37 per cent and France\u2019s CAC 40 gave back 1.13 per cent.<\/p>\n
In Asia, Japan\u2019s Nikkei closed 0.6 per cent higher, while Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng gained 0.77 per cent. <\/p>\n
Commodities<\/p>\n
Oil prices jumped as markets grew increasingly concerned that the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran might not hold, while tensions over the Strait of Hormuz escalated.<\/p>\n
Brent crude futures advanced 5 per cent to US$94.93 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate was up 5.37 per cent to US$88.35.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin 24 hours of Friday\u2019s \u2019completely open\u2019 announcement, there were already tankers that were fired upon by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,\u201d said Sparta Commodities analyst June Goh.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarket fundamentals are getting worse, as 10-11 million barrels per day of crude oil remains shut in,\u201d Goh added, referring to losses in oil production.<\/p>\n
In other commodities, spot gold was down 0.8 per cent to US$4,790.59 an ounce. U.S. gold futures for June delivery fell 1.4 per cent to US$4,811.<\/p>\n
Currencies and bonds<\/p>\n
The Canadian dollar was little changed against its U.S. counterpart.<\/p>\n
The day range on the loonie was 72.86 US cents to 73.09 US cents in early trading. The Canadian dollar was up about 0.18 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 0.118 per cent to 98.27. The U.S. dollar traded at $1.3696. <\/p>\n
The euro was flat at US$1.1766. The British pound inched down 0.01 per cent to US$1.3515. <\/p>\n
In bonds, the yield on the U.S. 10-year note was last up at 4.259 per cent. <\/p>\n
Economic news<\/p>\n
8:30 a.m. ET: Canadian CPI for March, which increased at an annual rate of 2.4 per cent and was up 0.9 per cent month-over-month. The Street was projecting a rise of 1.1 per cent from February and a gain of 2.6 per cent year-over-year.<\/p>\n
8:30 a.m. ET: Canada\u2019s construction investment for February.<\/p>\n
11:30 a.m. ET: Bank of Canada\u2019s Business Outlook Survey and Survey of Consumer Expectations are released.<\/p>\n
With Reuters and The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Equities Global markets turned lower as hopes for peace in the Middle East ebbed with tensions reigniting after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1577,114,5840,3151,184,5837,5838,1247,85,46,5841,2378,3507,5839,5836,2796,5835],"class_list":{"0":"post-401795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bonds","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-canadian-dollar","11":"tag-dow-jones","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-equities","14":"tag-futures","15":"tag-gold","16":"tag-il","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-loonie","19":"tag-nasdaq","20":"tag-newnewsletter","21":"tag-oil","22":"tag-sd","23":"tag-silver","24":"tag-tsx"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}