Morning Briefing: Equities fall as commodities drag

Equities fall as commodities drag... Valeant’s good news didn’t last long...

Steve Randall
Equities fall as commodities drag
Most of the world’s equity markets are trading lower Thursday as continued decline in oil prices along with other weak commodities markets hit sentiment.

Asian indexes closed mostly lower ahead of Chinese data due in the next session. Australia led the declines. Japan’s stock market was closed for a public holiday.

In Europe, energy firms and miners have lost ground and the major indexes are lower with the exception of Frankfurt, despite some weak corporate results from German firms.

Wall Street and Toronto are expected to open flat.
 
  Latest 1 month ago 1 year ago
 
North America (previous session)
US Dow Jones 18,495.66 (-0.20 per cent) +1.47 per cent +6.28 per cent
TSX Composite 14,775.04 (-0.18 per cent) +2.88 per cent +2.50 per cent
 
Europe (at 4.30am ET)
UK FTSE 6,826.45 (-0.58 per cent) +2.15 per cent +2.43 per cent
German DAX 10,671.96 (+0.20 per cent) +8.53 per cent -5.50 per cent
 
Asia (at close)
China CSI 300 3,233.36 (-0.31 per cent) +0.94 per cent -20.49 per cent
Japan Nikkei 16,735.12 (-0.18 per cent) +6.53 per cent -19.23 per cent
 
Other Data (at 4.30am ET)
Oil (Brent) Oil (WTI) Gold Can. Dollar
43.73
(-0.70 per cent)
41.36
(-0.84 per cent)
1351.40
(-0.04 per cent)
U$0.7658
 
Aus. Dollar
U$0.7711

 
Valeant’s good news didn’t last long
Earlier this week, Canada’s Valeant Pharmaceuticals announced some positive news which boosted its stock price by double figures, something not seen for a while.

Thursday’s news is set to hit shares again though as the firm is under criminal investigation into whether its relationship with a speciality pharmacy was hidden from its insurers.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Attorney’s Office in New York will look into whether concealing details of the deal with Philidor amounted to insurance fraud.
 
 
 

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