The Toronto stock market was set for a positive session Tuesday as traders looked ahead to the morning release of key U.S. housing and consumer confidence data.
The S&P TSX index gave back 76.64 points to end Monday at 12,680.71
The Canadian dollar improved 0.12 cents to 98.01 cents U.S. early Tuesday.
Stocks whipsawed Monday, starting off positive on relief that Cyprus had secured a €10-billion bailout loan. The country also had to come up with almost €6 billion on its own and it is doing this by slashing its oversized banking sector and inflicting hefty losses on large depositors in troubled banks.
But markets closed lower after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs the meetings of the finance ministers of the 17 European Union countries that use the euro, said the Cyprus bailout was a template.
No major economic data is scheduled for release Tuesday.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange faded three points by the end of Monday to 1,103.35
ON WALLSTREET
Investors head into Tuesday monitoring the turmoil in Cyprus with a new sense of calm while mulling over new economic reports in the United States.
Futures for the Dow Industrials took on 19 points, or 0.1%, to 14,405. Futures for the S&P 500 crept higher three points, or 0.2%, to 1,549.90, and futures for the NASDAQ grew seven points, or 0.3%, to 2,791.25.
Shares of Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase nudged higher in pre-market trading.
Children's Place reported that sales and profit jumped in 2012. But the company also issued a weak forecast for the first quarter of 2013, citing "unfavorable weather and weak macro-economic environment." The stock dropped more than 5% in pre-market trading.
In company news, Boeing completed the first test flight for its troubled 787 Dreamliner since redesigning the aircraft's battery system.
The U. S. Census Bureau reported that durable goods orders rose 5.7% in February, more than expected. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 0.5%, also higher than expected.
The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index is due this morning, while reports on consumer confidence and new home sales are up a bit later. The Case-Shiller index is expected to show an increase in the annual pace of home-price increases, according to the Briefing.com consensus, while consumer confidence is expected to have edged up in March and new home sales are expected to have risen to an annual rate of 426,000 in February.
Cyprus' banks will remain shuttered until Thursday to give regulators time to guard against a run on deposits. Some form of capital controls will be applied when the banks eventually reopen.
The island nation agreed early Monday to raise billions of euros from big depositors at the Bank of Cyprus and Popular Bank of Cyprus, and shrink its banking sector, in return for a €10-billion European Union bailout.
European markets were slightly higher in morning trading, recovering some ground lost Monday when bank stocks were hit by concern that the Cyprus bailout could serve as a model for future euro-zone rescues. Shares of Banco Santander and Deutsche Bank continued to trend lower.
Asian markets ended mixed. The Shanghai Composite lost 1.3%, the Nikkei declined 0.6% and the Hang Seng added 0.3%
Oil prices took on $1.00 to $95.57 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices dropped $5.20 an ounce to $1,598.10 U.S.
