Futures tied to Canada’s main stock index slipped on Friday as investors adopted a cautious stance following the crucial employment data from the United States and Canada.
The TSX Composite Index surrendered 52.48 points to greet the closing bell Thursday at 22,988.28.
September futures on the S&P/TSX index were down 0.6%.
The Canadian dollar inched up 0.01 cents to 74.09 cents U.S.
In corporate news, Japanese retail giant Seven & i Holdings rejected Canada’s convenience store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard’s $38.5 billion cash bid.
Statistics Canada informs us that employment was little changed in August (+22,000; +0.1%) while the employment rate decreased 0.1 percentage points to 60.8%. The unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 6.6%.
Later on this morning, the IVEY PMI will be released for August.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange stayed negative 2.13 points Thursday to 550.28.
ON WALLSTREET
S&P 500 futures fell on Friday as investors look to Friday’s key jobs report for further clues about the state of the U.S. economy.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrials took a header of 129 points, or 0.3% to 40,700.
Futures for the broader market dished off 26.75 points, or 0.5%, at 5,485.50.
Futures for the NASDAQ slid 172.75 points, or 0.9%, to 18,790.75.
Broadcom dropped more than 7% after forecasting fiscal fourth-quarter revenue just shy of analysts’ estimates.
Despite concerns stemming from the recent labour data, markets remain optimistic that the Fed will begin lowering interest rates by at least a quarter-percentage point at the conclusion of the September policy meeting.
Stocks head into Friday’s report on track for a losing week. The S&P 500 is so far lower 2.6%, and NASDAQ is down 3.3%. The 30-stock Dow is down 1.9% this week.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 sagged 0.7% Friday, while in Hong Kong, the markets were closed for a typhoon warning.
Oil prices gathered 59 cents to $69.74 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices hiked $2.50 to 2,545.60
