The Toronto stock market missed an entire session because of a technical problem for the first time in its history today -- and has said only that it intends to reopen at 9:30 am tomorrow.
Market operator TMX Group Inc. said its new Quantum trading engine performed flawlessly but data feeds were interrupted, and ''because the data feeds provide information to investors to guide their trading decisions, trading was halted to ensure market integrity.''
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks closed lower Wednesday after an afternoon of shifts between positive and negative turf, as financials weighed on a market still coming to terms with the Federal Reserve's latest move to shorten the recession.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 99.8 points, or 1.1 percent, at 8824.34, and the S&P 500 lost 8.76 points, or 1 percent, to 904.42. The Nasdaq finished down 10.58 points, or 0.7 percent, at 1579.31.
Morgan Stanley helped set the tone Wednesday, posting a wider-than-expected loss for the fiscal fourth quarter ahead of the opening bell. The bank holding company said it lost $2.37 billion, or $2.34 a share. Analysts had forecast a loss of 34 cents a share.
ConAgra Foods recorded in-line second-quarter profit of $168.1 million, or 37 cents a share, which marks a 31 percent slump from a year ago when the maker of Chef Boyardee and other brands posted $244.8 million, or 50 cents a share.
General Mills posted second-quarter earnings of $378.2 million, or $1.09 a share, which was down from the $390.5 million, or $1.14 a share, the cereal maker recorded a year earlier.
Apple shares were lately off 6.6 percent after its downgrade by Oppenheimer to market perform following word that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would not make his traditional keynote at Macworld next month.
On Wednesday, the 10-year Treasury was up 27.5/32 to yield 2.2 percent, while the 30-year note was up 2 15.5/32 to yield 2.6 percent. The American dollar was mixed against other major currencies.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude futures declined, with the contract for January delivery off $3.54 to end at $40.06 US a barrel as traders paid little heed to a widely expected production cut of 2.2 million barrels in current oil output by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
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