Equities
Global shares were steady on promising signs of United States trade talks, while attention was turning to earnings from Nvidia later in the day.
Wall Street futures were mixed on the heels of yesterday’s sharp rally.
TSX futures edged lower after another record close yesterday.
In Canada, investors are getting results from Bank of Montreal, National Bank of Canada and EQB Inc.
BMO has reported a rise in second-quarter profit that beat estimates even as it increased loan loss provisions and announced a 4-cent increase to its quarterly dividend to $1.63.
National Bank’s quarterly profit was also higher than expected, and it boosted its quarterly dividend by 4 cents a share to $1.18.
On Wall Street, markets are watching earnings from Nvidia Corp., Salesforce Inc. and HP Inc.
U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday that the European Union’s move to set up talks was positive, after walking back plans over the weekend to impose 50-per-cent tariffs on goods from the bloc.
“They are major trading partners so I’m optimistic there will be some sort of agreement in the end,” said George Lagarias, chief economist at Forvis Mazars.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 slipped 0.44 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.16 per cent, Germany’s DAX gave back 0.59 per cent and France’s CAC 40 retreated 0.24 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed flat, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slid 0.53 per cent.
Commodities
Oil prices rose with the U.S. barring Chevron from exporting crude from Venezuela and production shut-ins from Canada, while markets anticipated an expected production increase from OPEC+.
Brent crude futures were up 1.5 per cent to US$65.02 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained 1.6 per cent to US$61.89 a barrel.
“The loss of Chevron’s Venezuelan barrels in the U.S. will leave refiners short and thus relying more on Middle Eastern crude,” Westpac’s head of commodity and carbon strategy Robert Rennie wrote in a note.
In other commodities, spot gold rose 0.4 per cent to US$3,312.15 an ounce. U.S. gold futures gained 0.3 per cent to US$3,310.60.
Currencies and bonds
The Canadian dollar weakened against its U.S. counterpart.
The day range on the loonie was 72.24 US cents to 72.46 US cents in early trading. The Canadian dollar was down about 0.29 per cent against the greenback over the past month.
The U.S. dollar index, which weighs the greenback against a group of currencies, was up 0.21 per cent to 99.73.
The euro fell 0.19 per cent to US$1.1308. The British pound declined 0.29 per cent to US$1.3467.
In bonds, the yield on the U.S. 10-year note was last up at 4.468 per cent.
Economic news
Germany employment
(2 p.m. ET) U.S. Fed minutes released.
With Reuters and The Canadian Press