Wall Street futures were fairly muted early Thursday as caution sets in after recent gains. Major European markets reversed early losses.In the early premarket period, Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures all traded around break even. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq saw modest gains yesterday, extending their winning streaks to eight and nine days, respectively. The Dow saw slim losses on Wednesday. Canada’s“Markets have remained relatively tranquil amid the current lull in the U.S.
On Wall Street, shares of Walt Disney Co. were up more than 4 per cent in premarket trading after the entertainment giant topped market forecasts with traffic at some theme parks helping offset declines in revenue at the its ABC television network. For the fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30, Disney reported adjusted per-share earnings of 82 U.S. cents, exceeding an average forecast of 70 US cents, according to LSEG data.
The day range on Brent was US$ 79.44 to US$80.43 in the early premarket period. The range on West Texas Intermediate was US$75.21 to US$76.13. Both benchmarks lost about 2 per cent on Wednesday to touch their lowest levels since this summer. Early Thursday, new data out of China showed consumer prices fell 0.2 per cent in October on a year-over-year basis while producer prices fell 2.6 per cent, compared with the same period a year earlier. Concern over the health of China’s economy has stalked crude markets because of its position as a major global consumer.
In other commodities, spot gold was steady at US$1,948.94 per ounce by early Thursday morning after hitting its lowest since Oct. 19 on Wednesday. U.S. gold futures fell 0.2 per cent to US$1,954.30.The Canadian dollar was steady to slightly positive while its U.S. counterpart was little changed against a basket of world currencies.