Canadian stocks dipped Thursday afternoon for just their second decline in 11 sessions. Weakness in the mining sector dragged the market lower.
Within minutes of the closing bell, the S&P/TSX Composite index slid 41.22 points, to 11,514.38, after closing Wednesday at an 11 1/2-month high.
Mining stocks were down, as First Quantum dropped 8.5% to $64.38 after being downgraded to "hold" from "add" at Numis Securities.
Gold stocks were off as the precious metal backed off its record levels. Iamgold dropped 6.6% to $15.64, Royal Gold was down 4.6% to $47.79 and New Gold fell 5.4% to $4.07.
In other corporate news, Scotiabank jettisoned 0.9% to $48.15 to despite being upgraded to "sector perform" from "underperform" at CIBC World Markets.
Sun Life Financial added 0.5% to $31.48 after the company announced the appointment of Stephen Peacher as Executive Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer, effective October 13.
InnVest Real Estate Investment Trust soared 16.8% to $4.44 after the stock was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform. The Real Estate Index has climbed.
YM BioSciences surged 16.4% to $1.92 after the company announced the approval of nimotuzumab for marketing in Mexico.
MDS was up 2.1% to $8.34 after the company announced that it has appointed Steve West, President of MDS Nordion, as its Chief Operating Officer.
Endeavour Silver Corp. dropped 10.2% to $3.09 after the company said it filed a preliminary short form prospectus in Canada in connection with an agency offering of units to raise $16.05 million.
RuggedCom added 4.3% to $23.14 after the company announced the acquisition of WiNetworks for about $9 million U.S. in cash and the assumption of around $5 million U.S. in debt.
Nortel Networks Corp. said Wednesday that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved the sale of Enterprise Solutions Division to Avaya, a privately-held telecommunications company.
On the economic front, data revealed the composite leading index rose by 1.1% in August, after a 0.6% gain in July, according to data released Thursday by Stats Canada. The increase was the largest since April 2002.
Elsewhere, Statistics Canada reported that the annual rate of inflation was negative 0.8% last month, as the relatively low cost of gasoline and energy continued to drag the consumer price index down.
That compares with the July reading of minus 0.9%, which was Canada's lowest inflation rate in 56 years.
And Statistics Canada reported that manufacturing sales rose 5.5% in July, adding to the 2.2% increase reported in June, thanks to improved performances in the motor vehicle sector.
The Canadian dollar took a breather, too, giving back 0.08 cents to 93.77 cents U.S., after spending much of the day above the 94-cent mark.
ON BAYSTREET
All but three of the 14 TSX subgroups moved lower Thursday. Metals and mining proved the worst off, losing 4.4%, while gold was 2.7% lower and global base metals was down 2.3%.
The three gainers were real-estate, ahead 1.5%, health-care stocks, advancing 0.5% and financials, inching up 0.1%.
The TSX Venture Exchange ended 12.37 points behind Wednesday’s close to 1,272.17, while the Nasdaq Canada index was off 13.49 points to 822.85.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks churned Thursday, with investors struggling to balance hopes for an economic recovery with fears that equities have surged too far, too fast.
The Dow Jones Industrials stumbled 7.79 points to end the day at 9,783.92. The S&P 500 index lost 3.27 points, to 1,065.49. The Nasdaq composite index slid 6.40 points to 2,126.75.
The three major gauges had ended higher in eight of the previous nine sessions.
U.S. stocks surged to almost one-year highs Wednesday on continued optimism about the economy. Thursday brought new reports supporting hopes that a recovery is underway, but the response from investors was more muted as worries persist that the stock rally has outpaced the recovery.
Stocks have surged over the last six months as investors have welcomed a rash of improving economic news and an unprecedented amount of fiscal and monetary stimulus. Since bottoming at a 12-year low in March, the Dow had gained just shy of 50% and the S&P 500 had gained 58%, as of Wednesday's close. Since bottoming at a six-year low, the Nasdaq has gained 68%.
Trading could be volatile and volume could be higher than usual ahead of the quarterly options expiration Friday. On Friday, stock index futures and options, and individual stock futures and options all expire at the same time.
By afternoon, investors were ditching some of the biggest gainers from the last few weeks, including financials, commodities and big industrial names. Big Dow losers included Alcoa, General Electric, McDonald's and 3M.
FedEx said fiscal first-quarter earnings fell 53% from a year ago, meeting the forecast it issued last week. The package delivery firm reported weaker earnings that met forecasts on lower revenue that was shy of expectations. Shares fell 2% Thursday.
Oracle reported weaker quarterly revenue that missed forecasts late Wednesday. The software maker also reported higher quarterly earnings of 30 cents per share that were in line with forecasts. Shares fell 2%.
American Airlines parent AMR said it raised $2.9 billion U.S., including cash and financing. The airline also said it will shift some flights to more profitable hubs such as Chicago and New York and away from St. Louis and other places. Shares rose 20%.
Economically speaking, the government released reports on housing starts, building permits and jobless claims.
The Census Bureau said that housing starts rose 1.5% to an annual rate of 598,000 in August. That was considerably higher than industry experts were predicting: The consensus analyst forecast compiled by Briefing.com was for 583,000 new starts.
Building permits rose 2.7% to 579,000 from a revised 564,000 in July.
The Labor Department also released its weekly report on U.S. jobless claims.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment dropped to 545,000 in the week ended Sept. 12, the government said, compared to the prior week's revised figure of 577,000. This is less than the 555,000 claims that were expected, according to a consensus of estimates from Briefing.com.
Continuing claims, a measure of those receiving benefits for a week or more, increased by 129,000 to 6.23 million, the government said.
The Philadelphia Fed index was released after the start of trading. The index, a regional read on manufacturing, rose to 14.1 in September from 4.2 previously. Economists thought it would rise to 8.0, on average.
Treasury prices were sharply higher, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.39% from Wednesday’s 3.46%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The price of a barrel of oil was down a mere four cents to $72.47 U.S.
Gold prices subsided $7 to $1,014 U.S. an ounce.
