The Toronto stock market was lower Monday as buying sentiment continued to take a hit from Friday’s disappointing U.S. jobs data and word from the International Monetary Fund that it was downgrading its economic forecast.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index staggered 87.51 points to approach noon at 11,572.45
The Canadian dollar slipped 0.03 cents at 97.95 cents U.S.
The energy sector was off as Suncor Energy gave back 22 cents to $29.14.
The gold sector shed ground as Iamgold faded 14 cents to $11.38
The industrials sector slid, despite word that transportation giant Bombardier Inc. said Sunday that it received a conditional order valued at about $1 billion for 15 of the new C-Series aircraft the company aims to begin delivering by the end of next year.
At the same time, Guy Hachey, the president of Bombardier Aerospace, said on Sunday that difficulties with flight control systems could affect the timeline for the maiden flight later this year. Its shares ran ahead eight cents to $4.12.
In other corporate developments, Canadian biotechnology company QLT Inc. is cutting its workforce by two-thirds, leaving it with 68 employees. The Vancouver-based company had been one of Canada’s most successful biotechnology firms based on its treatment for age-related blindness.
But sales of Visudyne have fallen and QLT has struggled in recent years to find another commercially successful product. QLT shares added three cents to $7.73.
On the acquisition front, Thomson Reuters Inc. shares climbed 11 cents to $29.14 after the information provider made a friendly $625-million U.S. offer to buy FX Alliance, a company that provide foreign exchange trading technology.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange poked ahead 2.53 points to 1,213.88. The Nasdaq Canada index fell 4.26 points to 352.63.
All 14 Toronto subgroups were lower at midday. Metals and mining tailed off 2.7%, while global base metals slid 1.8% and materials faded 1.2%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks dropped Monday, as investors remained wary ahead of quarterly corporate results and another euro-zone meeting.
The Dow Jones Industrials settled 73.22 points to 12,699.25
The S&P 500 shrank 6.40 points to 1,348.28. The Nasdaq Composite Index erased 15.57 points to 2,922.26.
After 63 out of 103 companies lowered projections for earnings, investors are growing increasingly nervous about what Corporate America will say when second quarter earnings season unofficially kicks off, with aluminum producer and Dow component Alcoa after the market close Monday.
Overall, analysts are expecting underwhelming corporate results, with earnings dropping off compared to the first quarter.
Results are due later in the week from search giant Google and banking leaders JPMorgan and Wells Fargo
Shares of health care provider Amerigroup soared 38% after the company announced it would be acquired by WellPoint for $4.9 billion U.S. The deal comes less than a month after last month's U.S. Supreme Court health reform decision, which will change the landscape of the country's health care system.
Shares of Campbell Soup dropped after the company announced it would acquire organic juice maker Bolthouse Farms for $1.55 billion U.S.
After the closing bell, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Alcoa to report earnings of five cents a share, down from 32 cents U.S. a year earlier, on $5.8 billion U.S. in revenue.
Finance ministers from euro-zone countries are starting a two-day meeting Monday to hammer out details about how money from the European Stability Mechanism can be used to bail out troubled banks in struggling euro-zone nations.
Early Monday, the yield on the 10-year Spanish bond rose above 7% again -- a level that Spain's prime minister has previously called unsustainable.
Meanwhile, China's consumer price index rose at a modest 2.2% annual rate in June. The lower inflation rate serves as yet another signal of a global slowdown.
Economically speaking, the U.S. Federal Reserve will release data on consumer credit for May at 3 p.m. ET. Analysts surveyed by Briefing.com expect consumer credit to have expanded by $9.5 billion U.S. for the month, after growing by $6.5 billion U.S. in April.
The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury gained a little bit of ground, pushing the yield down to 1.52% from 1.54% late Friday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil for August delivery gained 88 cents to $85.33 U.S. a barrel.
Gold futures for August delivery rose $9.50 to $1,588.20 U.S. an ounce.
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