Equities
Global stocks were mixed and tech stock wobbled after chip giant Nvidia’s results fell short of some analyst expectations.
Equity futures pointed to a steady start for S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite indexes.
TSX futures were down.
In Canada, investors are getting results from TD Bank and CIBC.
On Wall Street, markets are watching earnings from Lululemon Athletica Inc. and Dell Technologies Inc.
Traders were digesting Wednesday earnings from AI chip giant Nvidia Corp, with shares falling in out of hours trading.
Investor concerns centered on Nvidia’s China business, which has been caught up in the trade war between Washington and Beijing.
The chip giant’s data centre revenues of US$41.1-billion also fell short of analyst expectations of US$41.3-billion, said Mark Matthews, head of research for Asia at Bank Julius Baer in Singapore, causing some concern among traders.
“Granted it was minor, but a miss is odd for this company,” he said.
While the company’s results were “gigantic” numbers, Swissquote Bank senior analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya noted that “they weren’t as gigantic as the most bullish estimates.”
“The rising concern that Nvidia’s earnings growth is slowing hints at a potential saturation point in AI-related holdings and the risk of a correction,” Ozkardeskaya said.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 lost 0.23 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.5 per cent, Germany’s DAX was flat and France’s CAC 40 gained 0.19 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 0.73 per cent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.81 per cent.
Commodities
Oil fell on expectations of lower U.S. fuel demand with the end of the summer travel season.
Brent crude futures dropped 19 US cents to US$67.86 and West Texas Intermediate crude futures declined 29 US cents to US$63.86.
Prices were also pressured by the restart of Russian supply to Hungary and Slovakia through the Druzhba pipeline, following an outage caused by a Ukrainian attack in Russia last week.
“This weekend’s U.S. bank holiday marks the end of the driving season and gasoline has hardly been the panacea hoped for in terms of demand,” said John Evans of oil broker PVM.
“Any short-term reasons to be friendly towards oil prices are diminishing,” he added, citing the Druzhba resumption.
In other commodities, spot gold was steady at US$3,394.60 per ounce.
Currencies and bonds
The Canadian dollar strengthened against its U.S. counterpart.
The day range on the loonie was 72.50 US cents to 72.63 US cents in early trading. The Canadian dollar was up about 0.6 per cent against the greenback over the past month.
The U.S. dollar index, which weighs the greenback against a group of currencies, lost 0.15 per cent to 98.08.
The euro gained 0.32 per cent to US$1.1676, and the British pound gained US$1.3503.
In bonds, the yield on the U.S. 10-year note was flat at 4.232.
Economic news
Euro zone economic and consumer confidence
(8:30 a.m. ET) Canada’s current account balance for Q2.
(8:30 a.m. ET) Canada’s payroll survey: job vacancy rate for June.
(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. initial jobless claims for week of Aug. 23. Estimate is 229,000, a decline of 6,000 from the previous week.
(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. real GDP and GDP price index for Q2. Consensus projections are annualized rate increases of 3.1 per cent and 2.0 per cent, respectively.
(10 a.m. ET) U.S. pending home sales for July.
With Reuters and The Canadian Press