Futures for stocks in Canada’s largest market were little changed on Thursday amid concerns about Canada's trade relationship with the United States.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index dropped 95.65 points to close Wednesday at 15,649.54. June futures squirted up 0.1% Thursday
The Canadian dollar picked up 0.14 cents to 73.59 cents U.S. early Thursday.
Potash Corp of Saskatchewan reported a higher-than-expected rise in quarterly profit as lower costs and increased potash sales volumes more than made up for weak phosphate prices.
Crescent Point Energy on Thursday reported a surprise quarterly profit as higher realized prices for oil offset a marginal fall in production.
Goldcorp reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings on Wednesday as a $250-million-a-year cost-cutting plan started to take effect.
National Bank of Canada raised the target price on BCE to $61.00 from $59.00
RBC cut the target price on Home Capital Group to $8.00 from $15.00
RBC cut the rating on Westshore Terminals Investment to sector perform from outperform
On the data front, Statistics Canada reported that weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees barely budged from January to February, coming at $968.00 in February, up 1.5% from 12 months earlier.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange improved 2.28 points Wednesday to 806.67
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open Thursday morning, ahead of major tech earnings and economic reports.
Ahead of the opening bell, futures for the Dow Jones Industrials improved 28 points, or 0.1%, to 20,933. Futures for the S&P 500 acquired three points, or 0.1%, to 2,385.25. NASDAQ futures gained 10.75 points, or 0.2%, to 5,547
Ahead of the open, Comcast reported better-than-expected quarterly profit of 53 cents U.S. per share and revenue also above forecasts.
Bristol-Myers Squibb posted adjusted quarterly profit of 84 cents U.S. a share topped expectations by 10 cents, while better-than-expected revenue was helped by strong sales of the firm's drugs for treating cancer and blood thinning.
Ford also reported figures that beat both the top and bottom lines. However, profit fell year-on-year due to higher costs, lower volume and unfavorable exchange rates.
Other companies on the earnings calendar before the bell include AbbVie, Union Pacific, UPS, American Airlines Group and Under Armour.
On the data front, initial jobless claims, durable goods and advance economic indicators are set to come out early Thursday morning, with pending home sales and housing vacancies due a bit later.
European bourses were somewhat inconsistent as the clock approached noon on the continent, while the Nikkei 225 subsided 0.2%, and Shanghai’s CSI 300 index was flat.
Oil prices faded 94 cents to $48.68 U.S. per barrel.
Gold prices took on 60 cents to $1,264.80 U.S. an ounce.
