Baystreet.ca - 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.
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 (NASDAQ:AVGO) 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