Shares on the Toronto stock exchange made some progress at Thursday’s opening bell, as investors digested news about Canada’s housing market.
The S&P/TSX composite index regained 30.06 points to begin Thursday’ session at 15,501.95
The Canadian dollar removed 0.57 cents to 90.86 cents U.S.
Empire Co Ltd, the operator of Canadian grocery chain Sobeys Inc, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit. Empire shares acquired 32 cents to $74.74.
Pembina Pipeline Corp, which operates a regional pipeline network in Western Canada, said on Wednesday it will boost the size of a planned $2-billion expansion, adding an additional 420,000 barrels per day of capacity to its system. Pembina shares took on 65 cents to $52.33.
Credit Suisse cut the rating on National Bank of Canada to underperform from neutral. National shares began Thursday down 33 cents to $53.00
RBC raised the target price on Shaw Communications to $27.00 from $26.00. Shaw shares inched up two cents to $27.61.
On the economic slate, Statistics Canada’s new housing price index for July came in unchanged, following a 0.2% increase in June. The agency says monthly price increases in eight metropolitan areas offset decreases in seven areas, resulting in no change to the Canada level index.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange fell 3.92 points to 980.08.
All but four of the 14 Toronto subgroups were higher to begin the session, with health-care, up 0.6%, information technology, ahead 0.5%, and metals and mining, up 0.4%.
The four laggards were weighed by energy, down 0.2%, while utilities and telecoms were off 0.1% each.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks were lower in early trading Thursday as a weak jobless claims data pushed investors to continue taking profits in a market that had rallied to repeated records.
The Dow Jones Industrials gave back 27.78 points to 17,040.93
The S&P 500 dipped 4.05 points to 1,991.64. The NASDAQ slumped 9.24 points to 4,577.28
The day's losses were modest but broad, with nine of the 10 primary S&P 500 sectors lower. Utilities, considered a defensive play that outperforms in periods of economic weakness, were the only group in positive territory, gaining 0.1%.
The largest percentage gainer on the New York Stock Exchange was Turquoise Hill Resources, up 4.8%, while the largest decliner was Brady Corp, down 7.4%.
Among the most active stocks on the NYSE were AK Steel Holding, up 2.31%; Bank of America, up 0.6% and Sprint Corp, down 2.1%
On the NASDAQ, among the most active were JDS Uniphase, up 11.3%; Lululemon Athletica, up 16.4% and Apple Inc, down 0.7%.
Energy shares continued to be weak, falling 0.8% as the worst-performing group. The sector has lost 4.6% this month amid a 4.9% drop in crude oil.
Jobless claims rose by 11,000 in the latest week, rising to 315,000. Analysts were expecting a drop of 2,000. The data follows the August payroll report, released last week, which was also weaker than expected.
Prices for 10-year U.S. Treasuries were flat, keeping yields at Wednesday’s 2.53%.
Oil prices were down 52 cents to $91.15 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices slipped 60 cents to $1,244.70 U.S. an ounce.
