By James Langton
(October 14 – 09:00 EST) – Markets look set for a little opening rebound this morning. They barely changed overnight. S&P futures were up strongly all morning, preceding U.S. retail sales reports, due out today.
Futures slipped a couple of points after the data came out, even though the headline number was softer than expected. Retail sales were up 0.1% in September. Analysts were expecting 0.2%. However if you exclude car sales, the number jumps to 0.6%, above expectations of a 0.4% rise. While auto, clothes and building material sales were slow, just about everything else was strong, which will fuel the fear of a rate-tightening by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board on November 16.
It was also announced that last week’s U.S. jobless claims slipped 29,000. There were no major releases in Canada. The Producer Price Index comes out tomorrow in the U.S. We’ll get our version of the Consumer Price Index.
Stocks are mixed in Europe. Energy plays are up, while telecoms are down. Traders have their own interest rate fears in mind. The FTSE 100 is up just 12 points so far. Both the French CAC 40 and the German DAX are barely changed.M
In Asia markets were slight movers too. Japan’s Nikkei rose 26 points;. The Hang Seng index was up 11 points. Japan’s Sumitomo Bank Ltd. and Sakura Bank Ltd. say they will merge to become one of the country’s biggest lenders.
In other business news Barrick Gold Corp. announces its third quarter earnings today at 10:00 EST. The event is available online at: www.webevents.broadcast.com.
AT&T Canada is announcing that shareholders have approved a proposed two-for-one stock split of both its class A voting shares and its class B non-voting shares.