Stocks in Toronto traded lower on Thursday as health-care and industrials gave back strength.
The S&P/TSX composite index faded 37.21 points to open Thursday at 12,133.20
The Canadian dollar skidded 0.11 cents to 69.61 cents U.S.
Dominion Diamond Corp said on Wednesday its executive chairman will step down and be replaced by Jim Gowans, a mining industry veteran, who will take over as non-executive chairman no later than April 30.
Dominion shares gained five cents to $14.00 in the session’s first hour.
Canaccord Genuity cut the price target on AGF Management to $4.50 from $5.25, based on the company’s preview on fourth-quarter results.
AGF shares dipped 17 cents, or 3.9%, to $4.18.
theScore Inc reports Q1 numbers today, expecting a loss of a penny per share. Network shares gathered a penny, or 3.6%, to 29 cents.
Imvescor Restaurant Group expectsQ4 earnings of four cents per share. Imvescor shares chugged ahead 22 cents, or 10.5%, to $2.31.
On the economic slate, Statistics Canada said its New Housing Price Index rose 0.2% in November, following a 0.3% increase in October. November’s gain was mostly due to higher prices in the combined region of Toronto and Oshawa as well as Greater Vancouver.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange dropped two points to 493.72.
All but three of the 13 TSX subgroups were lower in the early going, with health-care down 1.5%, consumer discretionaries off 1%, and industrials sliding 0.7%.
The three gainers were metals and mining, up 0.9%, energy, climbing 0.4%, and information technology, nosing up 0.02%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks traded lower Thursday, attempting to stabilize after a steep selloff, helped by some recovery in oil prices and better-than-expected JPMorgan earnings.
The Dow Jones industrial average skidded 49.65 points to 16,101.76, after a plummet Wednesday of more than 300 points, with Home Depot the greatest decliner and Exxon Mobil leading advancers.
The S&P 500 slipped 3.68 points to 1,886.60, with consumer discretionary leading five sectors lower and energy the greatest advancer.
The NASDAQ index tumbled 45.14 points to 4,480.93, briefly falling 1%, as Apple fell more than 1.5% and Facebook fell more than 2% in morning trade.
Shares of JPMorgan Chase struggled to hold opening gains of more than 1%. The banking giant reported net income of $5.4 billion U.S., earnings per share of $1.32, on revenue of $23.7 billion U.S., beating estimates.
Economically speaking, weekly U.S. jobless claims rose to 284,000. December import prices fell 1.2%, for a sixth-straight month of declines as the cost of petroleum and a range of other goods fell further, suggesting a tame inflation environment could persist in the near term.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury were unchanged, keeping yields at Wednesday’s 2.07%.
Oil prices surged 36 cents a barrel to $30.84 U.S.
Gold prices retreated $5.54 to $1,088.05 U.S. an ounce.
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