The Toronto stock market was little changed by noon ET Wednesday as Research In Motion Ltd. turned negative, unveiling its long-awaited BlackBerry 10 products and data showed a surprising weakening of the U.S. economy in the fourth quarter.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index faded 11.48 points to greet noon at 12,819.09
The Canadian dollar backtracked 0.23 cents to 99.66 cents U.S.
RIM had been up as much as 4% prior before chief executive Thorsten Heins unveiled the BB10 and announced the company’s corporate name would be changed to BlackBerry at a widely covered event in New York City.
But by late morning, RIM stock was down 55 cents or 3.5% to $15.16, adding to declines over the past two sessions — 3.4% Tuesday and a 7.6% drop on Monday. But that had been viewed merely as profit taking as the stock has staged a huge comeback since hitting a fresh 52-week low of $6.10 last September.
Analysts said the decline didn’t amount to much and that consumer reaction to the new product will determine where the stock goes.
Montreal-based IT services company CGI Group Inc. says its first-quarter revenue more than doubled to $2.53 billion, up 147.5% from a year earlier. CGI’s net income was $22.4 million or seven cents per share, after including $153.4 million of costs related to its takeover of a U.K. firm.
On an adjusted basis, CGI reported 44 cents per share of earnings for the quarter and its shares gained $1.41 to $25.70.
The industrials sector declined, with Canadian Pacific Railway down $1.70 to $114.52 after surging Tuesday in the wake of a well-received earnings report.
Telecoms also weighed on the TSX with Rogers Communications down 52 cents to $46.53.
The base metals component lost ground even as March copper on the Nymex gained six cents to $3.75 U.S. a pound. HudBay Minerals rose 17 cents to $11.69 while Teck Resources gave back 42 cents to $36.84.
In the energy sector, Cenovus Energy shed 32 cents to $33.61.
In the gold sector, Goldcorp Inc. climbed 42 cents to $36.53.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange subsided 3.83 points to 1,228.09
All but four of the 14 Toronto subgroups had fallen into the red by midday, weighed mostly by information technology, off 0.9%, while the metals and mining and industrials groups had each erased 0.5%.
The four gainers were led by gold, up 0.7%, materials, improving 0.5%, and real-estate, nipping up 0.1%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks were under pressure Wednesday following a government report that showed the U.S. economy contracted during the fourth quarter of 2012.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average eased 10.94 points to 13,943.50
The S&P 500 fell 1.10 points to 1,506.74. The tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite added 2.05 points to 3,155.71
On the corporate front, Research in Motion shares tumbled as the company launched the long-awaited BlackBerry 10. RIM is hopeful that its new operating system and devices will change its fortunes in the smartphone market. The company also announced that it is changing its name to BlackBerry, reflecting its big bet on new operating system.
Boeing, which has been dogged over the past few weeks by problems with its now-grounded 787 Dreamliner fleet, topped fourth-quarter earnings forecasts. The aircraft makers says it does not expect a significant financial impact from the grounding of the 787s.
Shares of Boeing edged higher.
Oil producer Phillips 66 shares rose after the company's beat earnings expectations. Shares of Amazon gained 6% after the company delivered a 22% jump in fourth-quarter sales late Tuesday. Facebook headlines the list of firms reporting after the close.
Shares of Chesapeake Energy surged 7% after the natural-gas producer announced late Tuesday that embattled CEO Aubrey McClendon will retire in April.
Despite the day's modest declines, U.S. stocks remain near all-time highs. The Dow is less than 2% away from its all-time high of 14,198.10 reached in October 2007, while the S&P 500 is less than 5% away from its record high of 1,576.09, also reached in October 2007.
On the economic front, U.S. gross domestic product declined 0.1% last quarter, marking the first year-over-year contraction since the second quarter of 2009. The drop, largely due to a 22% decline in defense spending, was a big surprise, as analysts were expecting that the economy grew 1% last quarter, according to a consensus estimate of economists
Meanwhile, payroll processor ADP said private employers added 192,000 jobs in January, higher than the 175,000 jobs that analysts were expecting. The ADP report is the first of three this week to provide a snapshot of nation's job market.
In the afternoon, the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee will release a statement upon the conclusion of its latest meeting, which investors will scrutinize for clues about when the central bank's bond-buying program will end.
Minutes from the Fed's December meeting showed that some members were weighing whether the central bank should wrap up the program, known as QE3, before the end of this year.
Prices on the 10-year U.S. Treasury fell, raising yields to 2.02% from Tuesday’s 1.99%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices squeezed out growth of a penny to $97.58 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices ballooned $18.70 to $1,679.50 U.S. an ounce.
