Futures on Canada’s main stock index were trading modestly higher on Thursday as oil prices jumped to three-week highs on hopes that major producers would cut output, a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged.
The S&P/TSX composite index gained 46.45 points to close Wednesday at 12,377.77
The Canadian dollar was flat at 71.05 cents U.S. early Thursday.
Potash Corp of Saskatchewan reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit and slashed its quarterly dividend, hurt by weakening fertilizer prices.
Shares of Bombardier closed below $1.00 on Wednesday for the first time since 1991, putting the company at risk of being pushed out of major Canadian indices.
Enbridge said it would buy Murphy Oil Corp's Tupper Main and Tupper West gas plants in northeastern British Columbia for $538 million
Barclays cut the target price on Canadian Natural Resources to $3.00 from $37.00
BMO raised the price target on CGI Group to $63.00 from $59.00 with an outperform rating
Canaccord Genuity cut the price target on Rogers Communications to $50.00 from $49.00, with a hold rating
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange eked up 0.29 points Wednesday to 489.89.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stock futures are moving up, indicating markets will recover from a Fed-induced Wednesday afternoon slump.
Ahead of the opening bell, futures for the Dow Jones Industrials gained 29 points, or 0.2%, to 15,880, futures for the S&P 500 picked up 4.75 points, or 0.3%, to 1,879.75. NASDAQ futures moved upward 27.75 points, or 0.7%, to 4,154.75.
Shareholders are celebrating Facebook's latest results and bidding up its shares by 12% in pre-market trading.
The company handily beat expectations on several key metrics, including growth of new users, sales and profit.
During the last three months of 2015, Facebook brought in $5.8 billion U.S. and made $1.6 billion in profit -- a whopping 123% increase from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, shares in e-commerce company eBay are plunging 12% pre-market as investors were disappointed by the firm's fourth quarter results. Sales over the last quarter were flat compared to the same period last year.
Another wave of companies is reporting results Thursday.
Alibaba, Caterpillar, Ford, Harley Davidson, Hershey, Jetblue, Time Warner Cable and Under Armour are among the key companies reporting in the morning ahead of the bell.
Then, after the close Wall Street will hear from Amazon, Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Visa.
Looking overseas, European markets are mixed in early trading.
Chinese markets were firmly in negative territory on Thursday, but the rest of Asian markets closed with mixed results.
Oil prices gained 24 cents to $32.54 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices retreated $5.59 to $1,119.38 U.S. an ounce.
