By Ketki Saxena
Investing.com -- At 10:30 a.m in Toronto, the S&P/TSX composite Index was at 18,894.79 points, down 0.20% in the day’s trading, tracking U.S. equities lower as growing COVID concerns in China, a fresh escalation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and profit-taking following yesterday’s rally weighed on North American equities this morning.
The commodity-heavy Canadian index was also pressured by broad-based losses in metals and renewed weakness in crude.
Commodities
Nearly all major energy an metal commodities were trading lower this morning as risk sentiment returned in force to markets this morning, exacerbated by the China slowdown weighing on global growth, and the Russia-Ukraine crisis, cited by central bankers as a key cause of global inflationary pressure.
Growing worries of a lockdown in the key industrial hub of Shanghai pressured oil prices and industrial metals on worries of demand destruction in the world’s second largest economy, and second-largest importer of crude.
Crude investors will also be watching for U.S. government inventory figures today, following Meanwhile, traders will get U.S. government inventory figures. Yesterday’s report from the American Petroleum Institute said crude stocks rose by 1.9 million barrels last week, close to market forecasts.
Gold meanwhile, continued to trend lower despite a weakening dollar, and as U.S. yields trade sideways,”
Canadian Economics
The big story in Canadian economics today is the cosnumer price index, which jumped to 8.1% year over year in June, following a 7.7% gain in May, and marking the largest yearly change since 1983, raising the case for another 100 bps move from the Bank of Canada in September.
On a monthly basis, the CPI rose 0.7% in June, following a 1.4% increase in May. Price increases remained broad-based with seven of eight major components rising by 3% or more, with the greatest acceleration due to the higher price of gasoline.
However, CPI was not the only measure of inflationary pressure in Canada today, with Statistics Canada also releasing the industrial product price index, and the raw materials price index.
The IPPI declined by 1.1% month over month in June 2022 and by 14.3% compared with June 2021, while the RMPI edged down 0.1% on a monthly basis in June 2022 and increased 32.4% year over year.
Corporate
It’s a quiet day on Bay Street today, with no major Canadian earnings or announcements expected.