Futures for stocks on Canada’s biggest exchange were little changed on Thursday, as investors tracked the path of Hurricane Irma and Brent oil prices held steady as U.S. refiners restarting after Tropical Storm Harvey increased their crude processing.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index dove 30.32 points to finish Wednesday at 15,059.83
September futures eased but 0.01% on Thursday morning.
The Canadian dollar rumbled ahead 0.36 cents to 82.09 cents U.S. Thursday morning.
Dollarama reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit for the ninth straight quarter, as customers on average spent more at its stores.
Kinder Morgan Canada on Wednesday named six major contractors for its Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and said construction is on schedule, even as significant hurdles remain for the project.
Hudson’s Bay Co activist shareholder Land and Buildings said on Wednesday it believed a highly qualified third-party buyer had "serious interest" in acquiring Galeria Kaufhof, the department store operator’s European chain.
Desjardins cut the price target on Alimentation Couche Tard to $72.00 from $74.00
Credit Suisse raised the price target on Restaurant Brands International to $74 from $60
Economically speaking, Statistics Canada reported Canadian municipalities issued $7.9 billion worth of building permits in July, down 3.5% from June and the first decrease since March 2017.
Later on this morning, Western University’s IVEY School of Business releases its Purchasing Managers Index for August around 10 a.m. ET.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange ditched 5.7 points by Wednesday’s closing bell to 773.99
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Thursday, as investors geared up for speeches from leading Federal Reserve members, as well as awaiting news from the European Central Bank's latest Governing Council meeting.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrials faded 10 points, or 0.1%, to 21,802. S&P 500 futures lost 0.5 points to 2,465, while futures on the NASDAQ Composite index gained 2.5 points to 5,957.50
Shares of TripAdvisor, Activision and Logitech all traded higher in the premarket. GoPro's stock also rose after forecasting rosy guidance for the third quarter.
Meanwhile in earnings, Dell Technologies, American Outdoor Brands, Cloudera, Okta, Redfin, and Barnes & Noble are some of the major companies set to report.
Switching focus to data, jobless claims and productivity and costs are set to come out, followed by the quarterly services report.
Central banks are expected to be the name of the game on Thursday, as investors shrug off concerns surrounding geopolitics, and look to
key news out of both the ECB and the Fed.
The ECB left its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday and made no reference to the anticipated wind-down of its stimulus program.
Meanwhile, a number of officials from the U.S. Federal Reserve are set to deliver remarks on Thursday.
Overseas, markets edged higher in Europe, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 recovered 0.2% and the CSI 300 in Shanghai slid 0.5%
Oil prices dropped 37 cents to $48.79 U.S. per barrel.
Gold prices gained $5.70 at $1,344.50 U.S. an ounce.
