Stocks Due for Stumble Monday

Futures for Canada's main stock index fell on Monday, tracking weakness in crude prices, while sentiment across global markets was subdued on inflation pressures.

The TSX rumbled ahead 229.48 points, or 1.2%, to close Friday at 19,365.29. However, the index fell short on the week by 107 points, or 0.55%

The Canadian dollar dipped 0.10 cents Monday to 82.45 cents U.S.

June futures toppled 0.5% Monday.

Centerra Gold said on Sunday it had initiated binding arbitration against Kyrgyzstan government, after the parliament passed a law allowing the state to temporarily take over the country's biggest industrial enterprise, the Kumtor gold mine operated by Centerra.

ATB Capital Markets raised the rating on Bombardier to "speculative buy" from "sector perform"

National Bank of Canada raised the rating on Pan American Silver to "outperform" from "sector perform"

RBC raised the target price on SNC Lavalin to $40.00 from $33.00

On the economic calendar, Statistics Canada revealed Canadian investment in foreign securities totalled $21.2 billion in March, mainly from purchases of U.S. shares. Meanwhile, foreign investment in Canadian securities was $3.2 billion, mostly in acquisitions of Canadian shares.

Also, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation tells us that housing starts the trend in housing starts was 279,055 units in April 2021, up from 272,164 units in March 2021,. This trend measure is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts.

ON BAYSTREET

The TSX Venture Exchange zoomed 22.61 points, or 2.5%, to end Friday at 930.96, minimizing the loss on the week to 19 points, or 2%.

ON WALLSTREET

Stock futures were lower early on Monday following last week’s sell-off triggered by inflation jitters, suggesting investors may be in for more selling ahead.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrials withered 166 points, or 0.5%, to 34,152.

Futures for the S&P 500 dropped 19.25 points, or 0.5%, to 4,149.75.

Futures for the NASDAQ Composite index faltered 77.5 points, or 0.6%, to 13,309.50.

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Media stocks were jumping in the pre-market on merger activity. AT&T is in advanced talks to merge WarnerMedia, which includes HBO, with Discovery, the companies announced Monday morning. The new entity will trade as its own public company.

Shares of Discovery were up 16% in early trading. AT&T shares were 4.9% higher.

Bitcoin was taken for a wild ride overnight Sunday. Earlier, the price tumbled below $43,000 after Elon Musk implied in a Twitter exchange that Tesla may have dumped its bitcoin holdings. Last week, Tesla said it would no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases due to environmental concerns.

Bitcoin then rebounded some after Musk later clarified in a tweet that the electric vehicle maker “has not sold any Bitcoin.” The price was last at $45,505. Shares of Tesla were off by 1% in pre-market trading.

The rest of Big Tech was mixed in premarket trading. Apple was slightly lower, but Amazon was higher.

Wall Street came off one of the wildest weeks of 2021 that saw the S&P 500 fall 4% through midweek amid heightened inflation fears. The broad equity benchmark eventually rebound and ended the week down just 1.4%.

The tech-heavy NASDAQ, which got hit particularly hard by inflation fears, dropped 2.3% last week. The blue-chip Dow fell 1.1% in that period. All three benchmarks posted their worst week since February 26.

Elsewhere, the first-quarter earnings season is wrapping up with more than 90% of the S&P 500 companies having reported their results. So far, 86% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive EPS surprise, which would mark the highest percentage of positive earnings surprise since 2008 when FactSet began tracking this metric.

Walmart, Home Depot and Macy’s will deliver earnings on Tuesday.

Overseas, in Japan, the Nikkei 225 backed off 0.9%, while in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index advanced 0.6 % Monday.

Oil prices sank 31 cents to $65.06 U.S. a barrel.

Gold prices gained $10.00 to $1,848.10 U.S.