Morning Briefing: Markets fall, Tokyo reacts to North Korea missile

Markets fall, Tokyo reacts to North Korea missile
Declining oil prices and a sell-off on Wall Street in the previous session have spooked investors Wednesday.

Most major markets are down so far as economic and political issues exacerbate weaker sentiment.

Asian markets closed lower, led by a 2 per cent slump for Tokyo’s Nikkei as the market reacted to news reports of a failed missile test by North Korea. There was also some weak economic data as Japanese supermarket sales picked up their pace of decline.

Sydney’s ASX was another notable loser of the session as materials, energy and financials fell. New Zealand’s central bank will announce its latest interest rate decision overnight. 

European markets are trending lower with a drop in the Eurozone’s current account surplus while concern remains surrounding forthcoming elections. 

Wall Street’s sell-off and President Trump’s policies are also in focus in Europe.

Wall Street and Toronto are expected to open lower. US oil and gasoline inventory data is due. The BoC’s deputy governor Lawrence Schembri speaks later.
 

	Latest	1 month ago	1 year ago
North America (previous session)
US Dow Jones	20,668.01 (-1.14 per cent)	-0.52 per cent	+17.55 per cent
TSX Composite	15,313.13 (-0.84 per cent)	-3.27 per cent	+13.49 per cent
Europe (at 5.00am ET)
UK FTSE	7,313.04 (-0.89 per cent)	+0.15 per cent	+18.09 per cent
German DAX	11,878.01 (-0.70 per cent)	-1.00 per cent	+18.90 per cent
Asia (at close)
China CSI 300	3,450.05 (-0.47 per cent)	-1.14 per cent	+6.95 per cent
Japan Nikkei	19,041.38 (-2.13 per cent)	-1.75 per cent	+11.69 per cent
Other Data (at 5.00am ET)
Oil (Brent)	Oil (WTI)	Gold	Can. Dollar
50.45 (-1.00 per cent)	47.74 (-1.04 per cent)	1247.20 (+0.20 per cent)	U$0.7463
			Aus. Dollar
			U$0.7648

5 to 10 per cent correction for Wall Street ahead?
The editor of the Gartman Letter says that US stocks are in line for a 5 per cent drop and maybe worse later on.

Dennis Gartman told CNBC that markets could fall as they lose confidence in President Trump’s policies. 

"I think there's something to the downside that could be quite serious," Gartman said. "Let us hope it's merely a 5-7 percent correction and nothing more than that."

Meanwhile UBS predicted Tuesday that a correction on Wall Street could be as much as 10 per cent.