Equities
Global markets were lower as investors assessed a range of corporate results and concerns over AI valuations persisted.
Wall Street futures reversed course and sank into the red as markets weighed Alphabet’s blowout spending plans against stellar quarterly results.
TSX futures followed sentiment lower amid sliding commodity prices.
In Canada, investors are getting results from Thomson Reuters Corp., Barrick Mining Corp., BCE Inc., Lightspeed Commerce Inc., Canada Goose Holdings Inc., Saputo Inc., Rogers Sugar Inc. and TMX Group Ltd.
Bell Canada parent company BCE posted flat revenue and improved earnings in its fourth quarter which saw the major success of its Crave original show Heated Rivalry, The Globe’s Irene Galea reports.
While releasing earnings, Barrick said it would move forward with preparations for an initial public offering of its North American gold assets and named interim head Mark Hill as its chief executive officer and president.
On Wall Street, markets are watching earnings from Amazon.com Inc., Shell PLC, ConocoPhillips, KKR & Co. Inc., ArcelorMittal, Open Text Corp. and News Corp.
“At the end of the day, investors have the last word. If they want their Big Tech darlings to slow spending – and they express that feeling by sending stock prices into a freefall – spending will have to slow," Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, wrote in a note.
“My guess is that if these earnings – and improved analyst expectations – can’t lift sentiment, it will be hard to prevent a broader selloff."
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.95 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 retreated 0.77 per cent, Germany’s DAX slid 0.88 per cent and France’s CAC 40 gave back 0.4 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 0.88 per cent lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng climbed 0.14 per cent.
Commodities
Oil prices fell but held close to multi-month highs after the U.S. and Iran agreed to hold talks in Oman tomorrow.
Brent crude futures dropped 2.5 per cent to US$67.73 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices declined 2.5 per cent to trade at US$63.47.
Oil prices are strongly influenced by tensions in the Middle East, with markets closely watching the talks in Oman, said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo.
In other commodities, spot gold declined 1.9 per cent to US$4,869.85 an ounce. U.S. gold futures for April delivery dropped 1.2 per cent to US$4,891.30 an ounce.
Spot silver was down 10.8 per cent at US$78.50 an ounce after dropping almost 17 per cent earlier in the session.
Currencies and bonds
The Canadian dollar weakened against its U.S. counterpart.
The day range on the loonie was 72.97 US cents to 73.21 US cents in early trading. The Canadian dollar was up about 1.43 per cent against the greenback over the past month.
The U.S. dollar index, which weighs the greenback against a group of currencies, rose 0.06 per cent to 97.67.
The euro inched up 0.02 per cent to US$1.1811. The British pound fell 0.51 per cent to US$1.3586.
In bonds, the yield on the U.S. 10-year note was last down at 4.241 per cent.
Economic news
Euro area retail sales and Germany factory orders
Bank of England monetary policy meeting. The BoE kept interest rates steady, but only after a surprisingly narrow 5-4 vote, and said it expected a future cut if a sharp fall in inflation due in the coming months proved not to be a blip.
The European Central Bank also kept interest rates unchanged as expected, shrugging off a dip in inflation while continuing to warn about an uncertain geopolitical environment.
8:30 a.m. ET: initial jobless claims for previous week
10 a.m. ET: Global supply chain pressure index
12:25 p.m. ET: Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem speaks in Toronto
With Reuters and The Canadian Press