Canadian stocks are poised for a weak open Wednesday as commodities were struggling to hold on to recent gains on profit taking. Also, traders might turn cautious ahead of Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker's meeting with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Athens and the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve's July 31st-August 1st meeting.
Most Asian markets ended lower overnight after Japan reported a wider-than-expected trade deficit for July. Meanwhile, European shares were lingering in the red ahead of two crucial meetings, due out later today and tomorrow. U.S. stock futures were pointing to a lower open.
On Tuesday, the S&P/TSX Composite Index added 40.89 points or 0.34% to 12,116.92.
The price of crude oil was ticking lower Wednesday morning as traders await cues from the official inventories data from the EIA. Today during trading hours, the EIA will release its U.S. crude oil inventories report for the weekended August 17. Analysts expect crude oil inventories to dip by 2 million barrels and gasoline stocks to shed 1.25 million barrels last week.
Crude for October was down $0.49 to $96.35 a barrel.
The price of gold was firm near its three-month high Wednesday morning amid hopes that the European Central Bank will take steps to reduce borrowing costs for Spain and Italy. Gold for December eased $1.90 to $1,641.00 an ounce.
In corporate news from Canada, telecommunications company Telus Corp. (T.TO) said that it is putting a new proposal to exchange its non-voting shares into common shares on a one-for-one basis to a democratic vote of all its shareholders.
Silver mining company Dolly Varden Silver Corp. (DV.V) said a wholly owned subsidiary of Hecla Mining Co. (HL) would acquire 20 million of it's common shares.
In economic news, Statistics Canada said retail sales declined 0.4% to $38.7 billion in June, more than offsetting the gain in May. Lower sales were reported in 7 of 11 sub-sectors, representing 64% of retail trade. In volume terms, retail sales edged down 0.1%.
Earlier today, data out of Japan revealed a wider-than-expected trade deficit for July, with merchandise deficit widening to 517.382 billion yen in the month compared with forecasts for a shortfall of 270.0 billion yen following the downwardly revised 60.3 billion surplus in June.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Business News
June 05, 2026 16:18 ET A busy week for economic news flow saw a slew of reports being released that reflected the trends in the U.S. labor market. In Europe, economic growth and inflation data gained attention as the European Central Bank and Bank of England head for policy session later in the month. In Asia, the monetary policy session of the Indian central bank was in focus as the country, a major oil importer, reels under the pressures of a weaker rupee and rising inflation.