Coming off of a second straight winning day for major US indices, US index futures are up moderately this morning with gains of 0.2%-0.4%. Overseas market action has been mixed with the Nikkei up 1.2%, the Dax up 0.4%, the FTSE flat and the Hang Seng down 0.2%.
For the most part, investors appear to be sitting on their hands awaiting results from today’s US midterm elections, which could impact the balance of power between the White House and Congress. The US 10-year treasury note yield has crept back up above 4.2%, helping the US Dollar to gain 0.4% against Gold, 0.6% against the Pound and 0.2% against the Euro. The Canadian Dollar is holding its ground on a day where commodities have been mixed. Natural Gas is down 7.0% giving back a lot of yesterday’s rally, while WTI Crude Oil is down 0.7%, and copper is up 0.9%.
US earnings reports out overnight and this morning have been mixed, particularly from video game producers where Activision Blizzard beat expectations ($0.68 vs street $0.50), while Take-Two fell short ($1.30 vs street $1.37, down 16.7% premarket). In the Chemicals and Fertilizers sector, Mosaic fell short of expectations ($3.22 vs street $3.44), while DuPont beat the street ($0.82 vs street $0.79). TripAdvisor also missed on expectations ($0.28 vs street $0.39, down 23.3% premarket). After the close today, Walt Disney and Occidental Petroleum report results. In Canada, Finning posted a big beat ($0.97 vs street $0.75), while Transalta had a big miss ($0.23 vs street $0.32).
