Canadian stocks were little changed Tuesday, as investors weighed European leaders’ efforts to tame the debt crisis.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed Tuesday lower by 24.15 points at 12,422.71, still, off its lows of the day.
The Canadian dollar fell backward 0.01 of a cent U.S. to 102.59 cents.
Utility and health-care shares in the S&P/TSX declined while raw material and technology companies advanced. Penn West Petroleum Ltd. lost strength after being cut at Macquarie Group Ltd. Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. rallied as it expects to receive a license next month to explore and produce at its CPE-6 block in Colombia.
Concern about Europe’s crisis weighed on the market as Spain’s two-year notes stayed lower after a bill auction. Rising yields may force Spain to seek assistance and submit to European Central Bank conditions for aid, ECB Governing Council member Luc Coene said yesterday. The country will consider a rescue to cut borrowing costs if the conditions are acceptable, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said today.
Penn West Petroleum slipped 69 cents, or 4.3%, to $15.27. The shares were downgraded to "underperform" from "neutral" at Macquarie Research by equity analyst Cristina Lopez. The 12-month target price is $14 per share.
Pacific Rubiales rallied 38 cents, or 1.6%, to $24.79. The regulator will receive additional company data allowing the process for a license in Colombia to move ahead, Chief Executive Officer Ronald Pantin said in a phone interview yesterday in Bogota.
Goldcorp Inc., the world’s second-largest producer of the metal, said mining acquisition targets are looking more attractive as tougher financing conditions have depressed share prices. Goldcorp shares moved 28 cents higher to $45.38, while rival Barrick Gold docked 11 cents to $40.99
The 74 companies in a Bloomberg Industries index of gold explorers now trade at an average 1.54 times book value, versus a three-year average of 2.58.
ON BAYSTREET
TSX Venture Exchange added 5.48 points to 1,322.64.
The 14 Toronto subgroups ended the day deadlocked. The seven gaining groups were led by information technology issues, ahead of Monday's close by 1.2%, while gold advanced 0.7% and telecoms moved 0.5% higher.
The seven laggards were weighed mostly by metals and mining, down 1.1%, energy, down 0.8%, and industrials, sliding 0.6%.
ON WALLSTREET
The U.S. Federal Reserve and Apple appear to be keeping the stock market from pulling back too sharply this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial average poked upward 11.54 points to 13,564.60 to close the day.
The S&P 500 index lost 2.34 points, to 1,458.85 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index scraped lower by 0.87 points to 3,177.80
But the tendency of central banks to do whatever it takes to help the economy is very much in the minds of investors, after the Federal Reserve announced it would buy more mortgage-backed securities to stimulate the economy.
Even as steel producer Nucor and FedEx cut forecasts Tuesday morning, investors appear to be ignoring all that and looking more towards the millions of consumers clamoring to buy a new iPhone this Friday.
Apple, an outsized component of the S&P 500, keeps hitting new all-time highs, and crossed the $700 U.S. mark Tuesday morning.
The selloff in petroleum dragged down major oil stocks, including Phillips 66, Marathon Petroleum and WPX Energy, which all declined more than 2%.
Yahoo's stock surged after the company announced that it would return proceeds from its sale of Alibaba to shareholders.
Shares of search engine Google hit a 52-week high.
Microsoft announced that it signed a patent deal with troubled Blackberry maker Research In Motion, sending its shares up 2%.
British soccer club Manchester United reported its first financial results as a public company Tuesday. The company reported a bigger-than-expected loss. Shares of Man U fell more than 2%.
Shares of AMD fell more than 7% after the chip maker revealed Monday that its chief financial officer was stepping down.
The euro lost ground against the U.S. dollar, but, at $1.30, still remains at a five-month high.
Uncertainty over whether Spain would request a bailout, or even qualify for one, was dampening any enthusiasm investors had over the European Central Bank's recent announcement that it would be willing to buy sovereign debt, pending certain conditions. But a report from Germany showing a jump in investor confidence offset some of the pessimism.
On the economic beat, another signal on the state of the economy was the Commerce Department's second-quarter data on the nation's current trade deficit, which fell from $133 billion to $117 billion U.S. That was followed by a Treasury Department report that showed foreign investors bought $73 billion of U.S. securities in July.
A monthly report on builder confidence from the National Association of Home Builders came in higher than expected at 40, up from 37 last month.
The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury rose, pushing the yield down to 1.81% from 1.84% late Monday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions
Oil prices for September delivery doffed $1.23 to $95.39 U.S. a barrel.
Gold futures for December delivery dropped a dollar to $1,769 U.S. an ounce.
