Morning Briefing: Interest rates, oil in focus

Interest rates, oil in focus

There are two key focuses for the markets Wednesday.

While Canadian investors await the BoC’s latest interest rate decision, which is expected to be a hold steady; they and the world markets are also keen to digest the Fed’s latest FOMC meeting minutes for clues on US interest rates.

The other focus is the oil market with informal talks being held by OPEC and non-OPEC producers which is widely expected to result in an extension of the output cap. Among the finer details are how long that extension should be. Saudi Arabia, Russia and others want it to be 9 months while 6 months is favoured by others including the UAE and Kuwait.

Asian equity indexes closed mostly higher despite a downgrade for China’s credit rating by Moody’s which also lowered its outlook to negative.

The downgrade has also hit European indexes which are trending mostly lower with materials producers among those impacted by a potentially weaker China. London’s FTSE is higher despite the government raising the country’s terrorist threat level to its highest rating and announcing deployment of the British Army to key locations.

Wall Street and Toronto are expected to open flat. Canadian interest rates decision, US FOMC meeting minutes, and US oil and gasoline inventory data are all due.
 

	Latest	1 month ago	1 year ago
North America (previous session)
US Dow Jones	20,937.91 (+0.21 per cent)	+0.84 per cent	+18.25 per cent
TSX Composite	15,476.94 (+0.12 per cent)	-1.50 per cent	+10.92 per cent
Europe (at 5.00am ET)
UK FTSE	7,499.65 (+0.19 per cent)	+3.23 per cent	+20.59 per cent
German DAX	12,638.73 (+0.16 per cent)	+1.48 per cent	+25.67 per cent
Asia (at close)
China CSI 300	3,424.17 (+0.00 per cent)	-0.21 per cent	+11.77 per cent
Japan Nikkei	19,742.98 (+0.66 per cent)	+4.59 per cent	+19.66 per cent
Other Data (at 5.00am ET)
Oil (Brent)	Oil (WTI)	Gold	Can. Dollar
54.46 (+0.57 per cent)	51.74 (+0.52 per cent)	1251.40 (-0.33 per cent)	U$0.7506
			Aus. Dollar
			U$0.7470

We need to teach our teens about financial literacy

A report from the OECD says that around 1 in 4 teenagers lack basic financial decision making skills such as everyday spending. It also shows that only 10 per cent of teens understand more complex issues such as income tax. 

The study was undertaken in 16 countries including Canada, US, Australia, China and Spain.

The survey also revealed that, on average, 56 per cent of students hold a bank account, but almost two out of three students do not have the skills to manage an account and cannot interpret a bank statement.

The data has been compiled using the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment and found that students with poor financial literacy are often lacking in other PISA subjects such as English and mathematics.