The Morning Minutes will not be issued on Friday May 31st, it will return on Monday June 3rd. Colin can be seen on BNN Bloomberg as Featured Guest on The Street between 8:00 and 9:00 am EDT tomorrow.
As we approach the end of earnings season, a number of stocks have been particularly volatile around results. Salesforce.com for example, plunged in aftermarket trading last night after missing street sales expectations, and is down 15.8% in premarket trading. US retailers have staged big moves in both directions this morning following earnings reports with department store Kohls down 22.5% premarket, while specialty retailers Best Buy and Foot Locker are up 5.5% and 12.4% respectively in premarket action. Costco and Dell Technologies report results after the closing bell today.
Canadian bank earnings season has wrapped up this morning on a positive note with Royal Bank ($2.92 vs street $2.75) and CIBC ($1.75 vs street $1.65, up 6.2% in US premarket trading) beating street expectations. Both banks benefitted from announcing smaller than expected loan loss provisions.
Broader markets have continued their selloff. US index futures are down 0.25% to 0.9%, adding to yesterday’s losses of 0.6% to 1.0%. Overseas, Asia Pacific markets sold off with the Hang Seng and the Nikkei both dropping about 1.9%. European markets have stabilized with the Dax flat and the FTSE up 0.3%. Commodities are having another tough day with Copper dropping 3.0% and US Crude Oil falling 0.4%. Gold is down 0.3%, while Bitcoin is up 1.1%.
With the turn of the month approaching and earnings season ending, focus now turns to economic indicators. US GDP remained at 3.1%, while the inflation component improved slightly. Tomorrow brings monthly US Core PCE inflation (the Fed’s preferred measure), China PMI surveys and US Chicago PMI. Manufacturing PMI reports from around the world roll out on Monday along with US construction spending.