Futures for stocks in Canada’s biggest market fell on Monday as oil prices plunged after a meeting between major producing nations on a proposed output freeze fell apart, leaving the world grappling with an excess of unwanted crude.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index lost 31.09 points Friday to end the week at 13,637.20, paring a weekly gain to 1.8%. June futures were down 0.3% Monday morning.
The Canadian dollar faded 0.65 cents to 77.37 cents U.S. early Monday.
Spain's Abertis said on Monday that, together with a unit of Brookfield Asset Management, it will launch a bid for the shares of Brazil's Arteris it doesn't already own for 10.15 reais ($2.87 U.S.) per share.
Meanwhile, Sky News reported on Saturday that Brookfield, CVC Capital Partners and Qatar's QIA have abandoned a secret plan to bid for British supermarket group J.Sainsbury Plc
National Bank Financial initiates coverage on Prometic Life with an outperform rating
Barclays raised target price on ARC Resources to $21.00 from $19.00
Barclays raised the target price on Crescent Point Energy to $22.00 from $15.00
On the economic slate, Statistics Canada reported that foreign investment in Canadian securities reached $15.9 billion in February, mostly Canadian-dollar-denominated instruments.
At the same time, Canadian investors kept buying foreign securities by adding $4.4 billion to their holdings, following a $14.7-billion divestment in January.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 8.42 points Friday to 633.84
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stock futures are dropping and nearly all global markets are in the red.
Ahead of the opening bell, futures for the Dow Jones Industrials fell 66 points, or 0.4%, to 17,748, while futures for the S&P 500 dipped nine points, or 0.4%, to 2,066. NASDAQ futures faded 18.75 points, or 0.4%, to 4,519.75.
More earnings from big U.S. companies: Hasbro, Morgan Stanley and PepsiCo are reporting ahead of the open.
IBM and Netflix are reporting after the close.
Monday is reportedly the deadline for any final bids to acquire Yahoo. Investors may not hear much officially about the bids, but information could begin to leak out. And the company will release earnings on Tuesday afternoon.
Intel is in the spotlight Monday after a report that it's planning to lay off thousands of employees as soon as Tuesday, when the company releases earnings.
The Nikkei in Japan led the markets down with a 3.4% drop as traders worried about the after-effects of twin earthquakes.
Shares in Toyota dropped 4.8% after the company said it would suspend production on various vehicle assembly lines in Japan because of a parts shortage caused by the quakes.
Oil prices are dropping after the world's top producers failed to reach a deal on freezing output.
Meanwhile, Kuwait's oil production has reportedly slowed significantly following a strike by oil workers. The nation has the lowest production costs for oil in the world, at around $8.50 U.S. per barrel.
Oil prices doffed $1.60 to $38.76 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices vaulted $5.05 to $1,239.04 U.S. an ounce.
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