Morning Briefing: Markets mostly lower ahead of busy week

Markets mostly lower ahead of busy week

As the new week, month and quarter gets underway, many stock markets are closed for public holidays including most in Europe. The rest are focusing on some key events this week including the Fed’s latest interest rate decision and the French presidential election.

Asian indexes closed mostly higher although Hong Kong and Seoul were notable exceptions. Sydney and Tokyo were the best performers despite pressure from weaker commodity prices with materials and energy stocks losing traction.

Wall Street and Toronto are expected to open higher. Canadian and US manufacturing data is due.
 

	Latest	1 month ago	1 year ago
North America (previous session)
US Dow Jones	20,940.51 (-0.19 per cent)	+1.34 per cent	+17.82 per cent
TSX Composite	15,586.13 (+0.51 per cent)	+0.25 per cent	+11.72 per cent
Europe (at 5.00am ET)
UK FTSE	7,203.94 (-0.46 per cent)	-1.62 per cent	+15.41 per cent
German DAX	12,438.01 (-0.05 per cent)	+1.02 per cent	+23.90 per cent
Asia (at close)
China CSI 300	12,438.01 (-0.20 per cent)	-0.47 per cent	+8.97 per cent
Japan Nikkei	19,310.52 (+0.59 per cent)	+2.12 per cent	+15.87 per cent
Other Data (at 5.00am ET)
Oil (Brent)	Oil (WTI)	Gold	Can. Dollar
51.73 (-0.61 per cent)	49.08 (-0.51 per cent)	1263.90 (-0.35 per cent)	U$0.7313
			Aus. Dollar
			U$0.7505

US launches investigation into auto patents

The United States is launching a probe into German and Japanese auto makers over whether some components used on vehicles sold in America violate certain patents.

Twenty-five manufacturers including BMW, Toyota and Honda are included in the US International Trade Commission investigation which centres on thermoplastics.

Reuters reports that share prices for Honda and Toyota were little changes in trading Monday.