Commodities were being watched closely on Wednesday morning, following a sharp drop on Tuesday that skewered Canada's commodity-heavy benchmark index and weighed on international indexes.
U.S. stock index futures were down with about an hour before markets open, suggesting that stocks will fall at the start of trading. Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average were down 18 points or 0.1 per cent. Futures for the broader S&P 500 were down 2 points or 0.2 per cent. Both indexes ended Tuesday relatively flat.
In Europe, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was down 1 per cent and Germany's DAX index was down 0.4 per cent in afternoon trading. Japan's stock market was closed.
Commodity prices continued to sag. Crude oil fell to $110.25 (U.S.) a barrel, down 0.7 per cent. Silver -- which made headlines earlier this week for its large tumble, following rising trading costs for the precious metal -- fell another 4 per cent. Copper was off 1.9 per cent and gold fell 0.4 per cent. These downward moves suggest that it could be another rough day for the S&P/TSX composite index, which fell 242 points on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, investors will be digesting earnings from Torstar and Agrium Inc. Time Warner Inc. reported that its first quarter earnings fell 9.9 per cent, to $653-million or 59 cents a share. The shares fell 0.3 per cent in premarket activity. And Canada's Talisman Energy reported a loss of $326-million (Canadian) or 32 cents a share, due to non-cash charges. However, oil production during the quarter rose 6 per cent from the previous quarter.
In economic news, the ADP private sector employment report showed that U.S. employers added 179,000 jobs last month -- a big gain that nonetheless falls shy of expectations for job gains of 200,000. The report comes two days before the official non-farm payroll report for April from the U.S. Labor Department.
David Berman