The Art Deco facade of the original Toronto Stock Exchange building is seen on Bay Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Helgren Acquire Licensing Rights
Aug 31 (Reuters) – Futures tracking Canada’s resources-heavy main stock index rose on Thursday, helped by higher oil prices, while investors awaited more U.S. economic data for further clues on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike path.
September futures on the S&P/TSX index were up 0.5% at 8:03 a.m. ET (1203 GMT), mirroring gains in their U.S. counterparts.
Crude prices were boosted by a large drawdown in U.S. crude inventories and production cuts by OPEC+, but a slowdown in China’s manufacturing activity limited gains.
Investors awaited U.S. price consumption expenditure (PCE) data for July, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, due at 8:30 a.m. ET.
The core PCE price index is expected to have climbed 4.2% in the 12 months through July, according to economists polled by Reuters.
Gold firmed near one-month highs, while copper prices slid on poor Chinese demand prospects.
The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE) closed at its two-week high in the previous session, lifted by gains in technology and energy stocks.
Investors would also be looking out for Canada’s second-quarter GDP data due on Friday, ahead of the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy meeting next week.
Among company earnings, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) (CM.TO) missed analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit, hurt by higher loan-loss provisions.
Canada’s Shopify (SHOP.TO) said Amazon (AMZN.O) would release an app in Shopify’s app ecosystem that would give U.S.-based merchants access to Amazon’s “Buy with Prime” option.
U.S.-listed shares of the Canadian e-commerce firm gained 6.3% in premarket trading.
COMMODITIES AT 8:03 a.m. ET
Gold futures : $1,952.9; -0.1%
US crude : $82.29; +0.8%
Brent crude : $86.56; +0.8%
($1= C$1.3543)
Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Siddarth S in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar
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