The Toronto stock market opened little changed Tuesday, as investors look to this week’s meeting by the U.S. Federal Reserve and what that body may decide to do about cutting back on asset purchases.
The S&P/TSX composite index gained but 17.32 points to open for business Tuesday at 13,201.73
The Canadian dollar dipped 0.06 cents to 94.33 cents U.S.
In corporate news, Saputo Inc. says it’s willing to pay substantially more for Australia’s Warrnambool Cheese and Butter if it can get as much as 90% of its stock.
The company is maintaining its base offer at AU$9 per share but says it will pay as much as AU$9.60 cash per share if it gets at least 90% of WCB’s stock. That would value the deal at $510 million. Saputo shares took on five cents to $47.22 in the trading day’s first hour.
On the economic calendar, Statistics Canada reported this morning that manufacturing sales increased 1.0% in October over the month before, contrary to projections of a 0.3% loss. The agency says sales thus reached their highest level since May of last year.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange dipped 0.73 points to 889.93
Nine of the 14 TSX subgroups were higher, led by information technology, up 1.2%, while consumer discretionary stocks were up 0.6%, and financials, up 0.3%.
The five laggards were anchored mostly by health-care, stepping back 0.7%, while gold stocks as well as the metals and mining group each faded 0.2%.
ON WALLSTREET
Markets were flat Tuesday morning, with investors still trying to guess what the Federal Reserve has in store after its key policy meeting wraps up on Wednesday.
The Dow Jones Industrials gained 7.14 points to begin Tuesday at 15,891.71
The S&P 500 index ditched 2.07 points to 1,784.47. The NASDAQ gave back 5.30 points to 4,024.22
In corporate news, Facebook popped almost 2% to a new all-time high after the social network said it is rolling out a feature that will allow advertisers to play videos in users' news feeds.
Shares of Herbalife spiked 3% after surging nearly 10% Monday when investors got word that PricewaterhouseCoopers' re-audits of the company's financial results came back clean. Herbalife has been battling accusations of financial wrongdoing from activist investor Bill Ackman, who has repeatedly called it a pyramid scheme and has a big short bet against the stock.
Boeing was up 1.5% after the aerospace giant announced a 50% dividend increase and $10-billion U.S. stock buyback program.
Prices for 10-year U.S. Treasuries inched ahead, lowering yields to 2.87% from Monday’s 2.88%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices moved up four cents to $97.52 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices skidded $4.80 to $1,239.60 U.S. an ounce.
