While the Bank of Canada was quiet yesterday as had been widely expected, the European Central Bank announced this morning that it plans to start tapering back its emergency asset purchase program, sending a signal that the European economy is starting to get back up on its feet and off life support. With the ECB moving into the tapering camp and the Fed getting lonelier in the all-out dovish camp, the Euro, Pound, Loonie, Yen, and Gold, are up all up against the US Dollar this morning.
US index futures are flat this morning as investors digest the losses of the last two days. In commodity trading, copper is on the rebound, gaining 1.6%. Energy contracts are mixed with WTI crude oil up 0.6% and natural gas down 0.3% ahead of today’s weekly US inventory reports which include natural gas at 10:30 am EDT and crude oil at 11:00 am EDT.
It’s a mixed morning for retailer earnings news. Lululemon Athletica is up 12.4% premarket after the clothing company announced that sales increased by 63% over year to $1.45B, beating the $1.34B street estimate with earnings per share crushing estimates ($1.65 vs street $1.19). On the other hand, Gamestop is down 9.1% premarket after the video game retailer reported a worse than expected loss (-$0.76 vs street -$0.67).
Tomorrow morning brings Canadian employment numbers for August. It will be interesting to see if reopening momentum in Canada continued through the late summer or if hiring slowed as it did in the US. The street is expecting and increase of 100K jobs and an unemployment rate of 7.3%.
