Bay Street stocks remained modestly lower on Thursday and snapped a five-session winning streak. Trading took place ahead of tomorrow's big jobs reports from both sides of the border.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index ended the day off 57.03 points to 11,887.51
Health-care stocks were down, as MDS has lost 1.75% to $7.86 and CML Healthcare declined 0.8% to $14.26.
Energy stocks are off as crude oil fell on the NYMEX. Canadian Natural Resources dropped 2.3% to $74.42 after being downgraded to "hold" from "buy" at Genuity Capital Markets.
In other corporate news, Goldcorp fell 0.3% to $43.26 after it said it intends to acquire 70% interest in the El Morro project held by Xstrata Copper Chile S.A. through a binding agreement with New Gold, which has a 30% stake in the project. New Gold, which will receive $50 million as part of the year, surged 13.2% to $4.55.
Barrick Gold, which had also been pursuing the project, was down 1.3% to $42.62.
Ivanhoe Mines dropped 0.9% to $17.07 after the stock was downgraded to "sector perform" from "sector outperform" by CIBC.
IMX added 0.9% to $14.90 after the company announced that it is developing its first IMAX 3D digital camera. IMAX expects its first prototype to be ready by early 2010, with the goal of an official launch in 2011.
The Canadian dollar gave back 0.28 cents to 96.63 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
All but four of the 14 TSX subgroups were lower. Health-care stocks were the worst off, losing 1.1%, followed by telecoms and energy, down 0.9% each.
The four gainers were led by real-estate, which built up 0.4%, metals and mining, 0.3% stronger, and materials, up 0.2%.
The TSX Venture Exchange advanced 12.79 points to 1,591.38, while the Nasdaq Canada index eased back 1.99 points to 727.03.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, a rally in financial shares and signs of improvement in the retail sector gave the blue chips a boost Thursday, but the broader market dragged on jitters ahead of Friday's big government jobs report.
The Dow Jones Industrials finished the day ahead 33.18 points to 10,606.86. The broader S&P 500 gained 4.55 points to 1,141.69, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell back 1.04 points to 2,300.05.
Boeing, General Electric and the bank stocks led the advance. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo were among the big financial names making strides.
Select homebuilders and retailers rose, too. But the tech sector was under pressure, dragging on the Nasdaq.
Late-season holiday shoppers were a boon to the nation's chain stores, boosting December sales by 2.9%, a year after sales slumped 3.6% at the height of the recession.
Discounters such as Costco fared particularly well. The company said sales at stores open a year or more, a retail metric known as same-store sales, rose 9% in December versus forecasts for a rise of 7.9%.
Target said sales rose 1.8%, versus forecasts for a rise of 0.2%. The company also said fourth-quarter earnings should meet or top analysts' forecasts of $1.11 U.S. per share.
Before Thursday's open, the government released its weekly report on jobless claims, which was slightly better than expected.
The Labor Department reported that the number of first-time filers for unemployment insurance totaled 434,000 in the week ended Jan. 2, an increase of 1,000 compared to revised figures from the prior week.
The number of initial jobless claims was expected to rise to 439,000, according to a consensus estimate of analysts polled by Briefing.com
The report comes a day before the government's monthly reading of employment. The economists' forecast is for a decline of 35,000 jobs in December, with the unemployment rate holding at 10%.
Treasury prices were flat at Wednesday’s 3.82%.
The price of a barrel of oil backpedaled 57 cents to $82.61 U.S.
Gold prices fell three dollars to $1,134 an ounce U.S.
