Canada's main stock index rose on Wednesday after Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz assured the Canadian economy is in good shape.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index gave back morning gains to slump 28.63 points and greet noon at 15,205.13
The Canadian dollar eked up 0.01 cents to 74.87 cents U.S.
Poloz said low oil prices are delivering "a material shock" that would cut economic growth this year and reiterated that the pace of future interest rate hikes would be heavily dependent on economic data.
The largest percentage gainer on the TSX was Restaurant Brands International, which jumped $5.46, or 7.2%, to $81.63, after naming Jose Cil, the current head of its Burger King unit, as its chief executive officer.
TransAlta, which rose 16 cents, or 2.4%, was the second biggest advancer, reaching $6.88.
Pretium Resources fell 11 cents, or 1.2%, the most on the TSX, to $9.06. Centerra Gold was down a penny to $6.44.
On the economic slate, Statistics Canada said retail sales decreased 0.9% to $50.4 billion in November on lower sales at gasoline stations and motor vehicle and parts dealers. Excluding these two sub-sectors, retail sales increased 0.2%.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange handed back 0.27 points to 592.81
Seven of the 12 TSX subgroups remained positive midday, led by consumer discretionary stocks, better by 1.2%, while information technology and gold each picking up 0.3%.
The five laggards were weighed most by energy, trading down 1.3%, financials, sliding 0.2%, and utilities, 0.1% to the bad.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks fell on Wednesday, erasing earlier gains, despite the release of strong quarterly earnings from companies like IBM, United Technologies and Procter & Gamble.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average withered from sharp gains in the morning to fall 36.98 points to 24,367.50,
The S&P 500 swooned 12.75 points to 2,620.15
The NASDAQ Composite dived 45.69 points to 6,947.67
Dow members United Technologies and Procter & Gamble both rose more than 3.5% reporting better-than-expected earnings. IBM, another Dow component, jumped 7.8%. Those gains initially led the major indexes higher.
More than 14% of S&P 500 companies have released their calendar fourth-quarter results so far. Of those companies, 72.9% have topped analyst estimates. However, only 58.7% of those companies have beaten sales forecasts.
Overall, profits for the companies that have reported have grown by 13.2%, slightly above expectations. However, that would be the slowest pace of earnings growth since the fourth quarter of 2017, when S&P 500 profits expanded by 15.5%.
Prices for the benchmark for the 10-year U.S. Treasury gained a bit, lowering yields to 2.74% from Tuesday’s 2.75%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices gave up 68 cents to $52.33 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices regrouped 40 cents to $1,283.80 U.S. an ounce.
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