By James Langton
(November 2 – 09:00 EST) – With a few big guns making speeches today , markets will likely open rather flat. Finance minister Paul Martin will talk about the state of the nation’s finances later today.U.S. Federal Reserve board chairman Alan Greenspan is speaking too. It’ll be his last chance before the next Fed meeting to give traders a hint about interest rates.
Interest rate hikes appear to be on the horizon in Europe, driving its markets lower, but bolstering the Euro. A German newspaper is projecting a 50 basis point boost in European rates. The French finance minister resigned this morning and that’s weighing on the markets too. London’s FTSE 100 is down 34 points so far. France’s CAC 40 has dropped 23 points, while the German DAX is down more than 10 points.
With interest rate concerns on the top of most traders’ minds financial stocks are leading the way down in European trading. Gold is also bouncing back a little in an apparent short-covering rally.
In Asia, trading was very light, and markets finished virtually unchanged ahead of Greenspan’s speech. The Nikkei finished down just five points, while the Hang Seng closed up 14 points.
Newbridge Networks is announcing projections ofdisappointing earnings for the second quarter of fiscal 2000, ending October 31. It expects to announce $480 million in revenue, and earnings per share of 8¢US to 10¢US. With the firm’s European operations leading its success ,the firm has also dumped its president and COO, Alan Lutz, in favour of its former head of European operations, Pearse Flynn.
Leitch Technology Corp. is announcing the appointment of John MacDonald, former president and COO at Bell Canada and former CEO at New Brunswick Telco, as its new president and CEO.