TSX futures fall as Israel's strikes on Iran dampen risk appetite
June futures on the S&P/TSX index were down 0.4% at 05:54 a.m. ET (09:54 GMT).
Israel said it targeted nuclear facilities and ballistic missile factories to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon. Iran retaliated by launching 100 drones.
The heightened tensions in the oil-rich Middle East sent crude prices , soaring more than 7%.
Gold prices also rose to a near two-month high, while copper prices fell.
The S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE), opens new tab reached a consecutive record high on Thursday as gold prices climbed and investors weighed the prospects of Canada nearing a trade deal with the U.S. ahead of the Group of Seven leaders' meeting this weekend.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week he expects to attend the G7 meeting in Canada with President Donald Trump and meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The benchmark index, which hit an all-time high on Wednesday as well, is headed for its third straight weekly gain.
The rally has been fueled by rising commodity prices, indicators of economic resilience and optimism around the U.S.-China trade deal, which has also raised hopes for a potential Canada-U.S. trade agreement.
In corporate news, Dundee Precious Metals (DPM.TO), opens new tab will acquire UK's Adriatic Metals (ADT1.L), opens new tab in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $1.25 billion, the mining companies said on Friday.
FOR CANADIAN MARKETS NEWS, CLICK ON CODES:
TSX market report
Canadian dollar and bonds report CA/
Reuters global stocks poll for Canada ,
Canadian markets directory
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
Is Israel on the brink of a golden age?
Benjamin Netanyahu was in favour. So, too, was Ehud Barak, his defence minister at the time in 2011. But Israel's top generals and intelligence chiefs were aghast. An attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, they feared, could result in tens of thousands of Israeli civilian deaths. Months after retiring as Mossad chief that year, Meir Dagan – one of Israel's most revered spymasters – even went as far as to call the idea 'the stupidest I've ever heard'. Yet 14 years later, despite widespread opposition at home and abroad, Mr Netanyahu's boldest gamble appears to have paid off. In just 12 days, he humbled Iran at a cost much lower than even Israel's most optimistic military planners would have dared hope. When he walks into the White House on Monday, the Israeli prime minister's meeting with Donald Trump will therefore have the feel of a Roman triumph. Both men will portray their battlefield success as vindication over the wishy-washiness of their critics. But they are also thinking beyond victory laps. Mr Trump hopes to burnish his peacemaking credentials by brokering another ceasefire in Gaza. His guest will aim higher still, arguing that he has helped birth a new regional order – one that could mark the dawn of a golden era for Israel. Since the horrors of Oct 7 2023, Israel has made a Herculean effort to sever the limbs of the Iranian Hydra – Hamas and Hezbollah – before going for the head itself as it launched its first direct war with a foreign state since 1973. Mr Netanyahu now believes a legacy-defining peace dividend is within reach: new alliances with Arab states, containment of Iran and the isolation – perhaps even the marginalisation – of the Palestinians. Several Arab states are seriously considering the Abraham Accords, says Gen Yossi Kuperwasser, former director-general of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, referring to the 2020 deal that normalised relations with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan. 'There is a golden opportunity,' he said. 'Iran is weakened. The Iranian threat feared by many countries in the Middle East is much decreased. We are even talking about countries like Syria and Lebanon hopefully joining the Abraham Accords. Who would ever have dreamed that?' But while Mr Netanyahu may have won the war, there is scepticism over whether he is the man to win the peace. Much depends on whether he can reverse Carl von Clausewitz's famous dictum and pursue diplomacy 'as the continuation of war by other means', says Col Eran Lerman, a former deputy national security adviser. That Mr Netanyahu is even in a position to consider reshaping the Middle East would once have seemed miraculous. In 2010 and again in 2012, as he edged towards war with Iran, senior military and intelligence officials were so anxious they took to privately briefing The Telegraph and other Western media on the risks. Iran's Lebanese proxy Hezbollah had amassed such a vast missile arsenal they estimated retaliatory strikes could kill up to 50,000 people. Entire neighbourhoods of Tel Aviv would be reduced to rubble. The political cost – a possible rupture with Barack Obama, then US president – was also deemed too great. In hindsight, Israel may have overestimated the potency of Iran's proxies. By 2024, Israeli missile defences and battlefield intelligence had dramatically improved, allowing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to defeat Hezbollah in eight weeks last year and Iran itself in under a fortnight. But this was not simply a 12-day campaign of air strikes and covert hits. It was the culmination of 46 years of hostility, dating back to 1979, when Israel made peace with Egypt, formerly its greatest foe, and lost Iran – once its closest regional ally – to revolution. From the outset, the Islamic Republic waged an undeclared war on Israel, pledging its destruction and founding Hezbollah to fight Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. But for years Israeli strategists focused more on Palestinian militants than the Iranian threat – so much so that during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Israel secretly sold arms to Tehran through the Iran-Contra Affair. After the first Lebanon war, Israel redoubled its efforts to penetrate Hezbollah. But in 2006, when Israeli troops re-entered southern Lebanon, the results were sobering. The 34-day war ended in stalemate. Gen Assaf Orion, the IDF's former head of strategic planning, calls it 'not the brightest campaign we've run'. Few understood that better than Gen Mickey Edelstein, then commander of the Nahal Brigade, who recalls how unprepared his troops were. Accustomed to small operations against Palestinian groups, they struggled with full-scale warfare. Tactical goals were vague. Air support was inconsistent. Orders were sometimes contradictory. 'My brigade was shifted between three different divisions over the war,' he recalled. 'We would go into Lebanon, be pulled back into Israel and sent out again with a different division. A lot of mistakes were made.' After the war, senior commanders privately acknowledged failures in planning, command and intelligence – and lessons were learnt. Soldiers were retrained for major warfare. When Gen Edelstein returned to battle in Gaza in 2014, the forces he led were significantly more capable. Intelligence also underwent wholesale reform, said Col Lerman. 'Intelligence in 2006 was clearly insufficient for the conduct of successful operations. After the war, there was serious self-questioning about how well intelligence was collected and how well it was distributed to forces on the ground.' Amos Yadlin, then head of military intelligence, led sweeping changes that continue to shape Israeli warfare. From 2006 on, Israel grasped the full extent of the Iran-Hezbollah nexus. Of the 121 Israeli soldiers killed in 2006, many died from Iranian-made weapons – some fired by Iranian troops embedded with Hezbollah, according to Israeli officials. In the following years, Iran poured resources into Hezbollah, providing cash, training and ever more sophisticated rockets, missiles and drones. The goal was clear: build a deterrent so fearsome it would stop Israel from ever striking Iran's nuclear programme. But that scale became a vulnerability. 'From a nimble guerrilla organisation, it became an established army, requiring greater management,' said Gen Orion. 'And with that came the exposures and weaknesses of larger organisations.' Israeli intelligence infiltrated Hezbollah deeply. It even sold the group the explosive-laden pagers and walkie-talkies that maimed thousands of Hezbollah operatives over two days last September. Most of Hezbollah's senior leadership, including its overall commander Hassan Nasrallah, was also assassinated thanks to what Col Lerman describes as a 'deeply penetrating, co-ordinated effort stretching back decades'. It wasn't just personnel. Israeli planners had mapped Hezbollah and Iranian missile sites with such precision that they destroyed most launch capabilities before the first volleys were fired. As a result, Israel was able to strike Iran, kill much of its leadership and damage its nuclear programme – and face far more muted retaliation than once feared. Although 28 Israelis were killed and 15,000 lost their homes, neither Hezbollah nor Hamas launched a single rocket in Iran's defence. 'Really the most dramatic aspect of all this is that the organisation exclusively built for one purpose – to punish Israel horrendously if it dared attack Iran – did not fire a single shot during 12 days of war,' said Col Lerman. How should Israel use its dominance? Israel has therefore emerged as the dominant military force in the region, with Mr Netanyahu's allies believing they can dictate a new dispensation for the region. Yet how the Israeli prime minister uses that dominance is now a central question. Since a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah in November, Israel has killed some 300 members of its fighters in targeted strikes – reportedly with the tacit consent of parts of the Lebanese government, which may now be looking to disarm the group entirely. Covert action in Iran is also expected to continue. Military action beyond Israel's borders aside, however, what kind of future Mr Netanyahu envisions is up for debate. There are three possible paths, says Eran Etzion, a former deputy head of Israel's National Security Council and a critic of Mr Netanyahu. One is to 'live by the sword', fighting a 'forever war', a view, he said, preferred by elements on the Right of Mr Netanyahu's coalition, who argue Israel will never be accepted in the region. Another is 'conflict management' – continuing low-intensity fighting with Hamas, expanding West Bank settlements and perhaps trying to remove Palestinians from Gaza even while seeking friendship with Arab states. 'It's a vision of perpetual war with the Palestinians while striking normalisation agreements with other Arab countries,' says Mr Etzion, who believes this is the strategy Mr Netanyahu is most likely to adopt. 'Peace is off the table' The third option – long-term peace-building – is, in Mr Etzion's view, off the table under the present government. Critics warn that Mr Netanyahu's vision of victory risks being both fragile and short-lived if it depends solely on violence. The idea that Israel can indefinitely deter aggression without addressing Palestinian aspirations may prove illusory. Saudi Arabia, the biggest prize of all, insists that any Abraham Accords-style agreement requires progress towards a two-state solution. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is thought to be eager for a deal, but without movement on a Palestinian state, his hands may be tied by public opinion, inflamed by the devastation inflicted on Gaza. Lebanon and Syria may also see advantage in rapprochement with Israel. But public sentiment remains volatile in both countries, too. Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new president, appears conducive to the idea of better ties, particularly as he seeks to rebuild relations with the West. But many members of his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), are deeply hostile to Israel. A splinter faction recently claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a Damascus church that killed 25 people last month. Mr Sharaa may fear pushing his hardliners too far. Israel, for all its strengths, may overreach. It is 'still numerically and materially inferior to the sum of all its potential enemies', said Gen Orion. 'Which is why it must retain its qualitative military edge and creative diplomacy.' Meanwhile, unless a robust diplomatic agreement emerges, Iran is likely to attempt to rebuild the triad of threats that once made it so formidable: its nuclear programme, ballistic missile arsenal and regional proxy network. 'The regional landscape is shifting dramatically,' said Shai Agmon, a fellow at New College, Oxford and academic director of Molad, a liberal Israeli think tank. 'Israel can reshape it to serve its own security interests and create a thriving regional order – or it can squander it. 'Israel is the strongest force around for now. But in the absence of a stable diplomatic resolution, Iran and its proxies will regroup and try to escalate the situation again. 'And unless the government is willing to consider a path towards regional peace – which necessarily entails some form of two-state solution, an idea it has so far refused even to entertain – it is hard to see how lasting stability will be achieved.'
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Morning Bid: Deadline? What deadline?
LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) - Global stocks are tiptoeing higher, while the U.S. dollar continues to struggle at three-year lows against a basket of currencies. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says the central bank is in no rush to raise rates - despite pressure from President Donald Trump. With a week to go until the July 9 deadline tariffs and a raft of key employment data in the next two days, market activity is, for the most part, pretty subdued for now. Mike Dolan is enjoying some well-deserved time off over the next two weeks, but the Reuters markets team is here to provide you with all the information you need to start your day. Today's Market Minute * U.S. Senate Republicans passed President Donald Trump's massive tax-cut and spending bill on Tuesday by the narrowest of margins. The legislation now heads to the House of Representatives for possible final approval, though a handful of Republicans there have already voiced opposition to some of the Senate provisions. * The Iranian military loaded naval mines onto vessels in the Gulf last month, a move that intensified concerns in Washington that Tehran was gearing up to blockade the Strait of Hormuz following Israel's strikes on sites across Iran, according to two U.S. officials. * The United States could reach a trade deal with India that would help American companies compete in the South Asian country and leave it facing far lower tariffs, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, while casting doubt on a possible deal with Japan. * A core tenet of sovereign debt investment is that strong institutions keep down a country's borrowing costs and vice versa. So then why, ask professors Ugo Panizza and Mitu Gulati, has the bond market's response to U.S. President Donald Trump's institutional norm-busting been so tame? * It's easy to come up with reasons to be bearish about U.S. equities given elevated valuations and the uncertainty surrounding the country's economic outlook. But Stephanie Guild, Chief Investment Officer of Robinhood Markets, claims there is a positive trend cutting across all this negativity: capital expenditure growth. Deadline? What deadline? Blink and you'll miss it. Two weeks ago, markets were fretting about the prospect of all-out war in the Middle East, as Israel and Iran bombed one another. One week ago, global markets were rallying in relief as the oil price cratered following the U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, and a fragile ceasefire that appeared to be holding. Now, with a week to go until Trump's July 9 deadline on tariffs, markets have moved on to how long Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell can resist pressure from the president to cut interest rates. Markets are already preparing for a Trump loyalist to replace Powell when his term expires next May. Almost four quarter-point cuts over the next year are now priced into the equation in 2026, up from closer to three just a month ago. Investors have largely expressed their views on tariffs through the currency market and, as far as forex is concerned, July 9 is shaping up to be just another day at the office. Implied currency options volatility - a measure of demand from traders to buy protection against large price swings - surged in early April, when Trump unveiled his raft of tariffs on practically every country on the planet, and continued to do so even after he'd hit the pause button on April 9, peaking shortly afterwards. Since then, volatility has subsided, whether for stocks, bonds or currencies, as investors have become more immune to the president's on-again-off-again approach to trade policy. And that's no surprise. Having said he would secure 90 deals in 90 days, so far there is just one fairly limited deal in the bag, with the UK. In fact, Trump's to-ing and fro-ing on tariffs has been so frequent, it's given rise to the acronym TACO, which stands for "Trump Always Chickens Out", something many investors now factor in when placing trades. Last Friday, Trump said the July 9 deadline was not fixed. "We can do whatever we want," he told reporters at the White House. Then, on Tuesday, he said he wasn't thinking of extending it at all, mentioning Japan as his latest bugbear. In the face of such dizzying switches, forex traders are assuming there will ultimately be some kind of market-soothing pause, reversal, compromise or general can-kicking while the U.S. administration attempts to hash out agreements. Implied volatility for euro options expiring on July 9 is around 8.5%, very much in line with its recent range. For comparison, a month ago, the one-month options - which then expired on July 9 - were at exactly this level, while two-month options two months ago were above 9%. Back in early April, at the time of the pause, three-month euro implied volatility topped 10%. The pattern is virtually identical for all the major currencies that are exposed to tariffs, including the Canadian dollar, Japanese yen and Mexican peso. It's not just currencies either. The VIX volatility index, known as Wall Street's "fear index", has been trading below the attention-grabbing 20 mark, for much of the last two months following a spike to 60 in early April. Drilling down, weekly VIX futures that expire on July 9 have drifted into "sanguine" territory, at around 18.65 from a peak above 20 in mid-June, when Israel/Iran hostilities boiled over. In the run-up to Liberation Day, the weekly VIX futures contract that expired on April 2 hit a top of around 25. Central bankers, major asset managers, private equity giants, politicians, the heads of the world's largest companies and just about everyone has cited tariffs as the biggest uncertainty facing the world right now. As always with markets, someone will be right and someone will be wrong. There is still some time to go before July 9. Chart of the day The monthly ADP private payrolls report is due later in the day and, based on a survey of economists by Reuters, is expected to have risen by 95,000 in June, up from May's three-year low of 37,000, but below June 2024's 150,000 rise. The ADP report usually lands two days before the more comprehensive monthly non-farm payrolls report and, although there is no correlation between the two, investors inevitably use ADP as some form of steer on what to expect from the upcoming government report. Since hitting a COVID-era peak of 807,000 in late 2021, private sector payrolls growth has been moderating. Today's events to watch * June ADP payrolls report * Tesla second-quarter deliveries * ECB Forum on Central Banking 2025 in Sintra, Portugal wraps up * EIA weekly crude inventories * World UFO Day on the anniversary of the Roswell incident Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, opens new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. Want to receive the Morning Bid in your inbox every weekday morning? Sign up for the newsletter here.
Reuters
5 hours ago
- Reuters
Egypt's non-oil business conditions deteriorate further in June, PMI shows
July 6 (Reuters) - Egypt's non-oil private sector experienced a further decline in business conditions in June, with contractions in output and new orders accelerating, according to the latest S&P Global Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) data released on Sunday. The headline PMI fell to 48.8 in June from 49.5 in May, marking the fourth consecutive month below the 50.0 threshold that separates growth from contraction. This decline was driven by weaker demand and a sharp reduction in purchasing activity, which saw its steepest drop in 11 months. "June PMI data pointed to another mild decline in the health of the non-oil sector, driven by sustained decreases in incoming new orders and output volumes," said David Owen, economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. "Overall expectations for future activity were the lowest ever recorded in June, reflecting subdued hopes for order books, as well as concerns that geopolitical risks could cause greater economic disruption." Employment in the non-oil sector also decreased for the fifth month running, though the rate of job shedding was fractional. Firms expressed limited optimism towards future output, with confidence slipping to a record low. On a positive note, input cost pressures softened, leading to a slower rise in output prices and offering some relief to businesses facing inflationary pressures.
