Equity markets in Toronto opened lower on Thursday, weighed down by losses among its heavyweight banks, while alternative lender Home Capital Group Inc recovered some of the previous session's sharp losses after hiring bankers to consider its strategic options.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index tumbled 102.81 points to open Thursday at 15,546.73
The Canadian dollar eked higher 0.08 cents at 73.52 cents U.S.
RBC cut the target price on Home Capital Group to $8.00 from $15.00. Home Capital gained back 66 cents, or 11%, to $6.65 Thursday morning.
Potash Corp of Saskatchewan reported a higher-than-expected rise in quarterly profit as lower costs and increased potash sales volumes more than made up for weak phosphate prices.
Potash shares gained 61 cents, or 2.7%, to $23.27.
Crescent Point Energy on Thursday reported a surprise quarterly profit as higher realized prices for oil offset a marginal fall in production.
Crescent Point shares dropped 16 cents, or 1.2%, to $12.91.
Goldcorp reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings on Wednesday as a $250-million-a-year cost-cutting plan started to take effect.
Goldcorp shares slid 71 cents, or 3.6%, to $19.01.
National Bank of Canada raised the target price on BCE to $61.00 from $59.00. BCE shares lost 31 cents to $62.39.
RBC cut the rating on Westshore Terminals Investment to sector perform from outperform. Westshore shares gained 89 cents, or 1.5%, to $60.61.
On the data front, Statistics Canada reported that weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees barely budged from January to February, coming at $968.00 in February, up 1.5% from 12 months earlier.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange nicked higher 0.72 points to 807.39
All but three of the 12 TSX subgroups were negative in the first hour, as gold slumped 1.7%, materials were down 1.2%, and financials were 1.1% to the bad.
The three gainers were industrials, vaulting 0.9%, consumer discretionary issues, fighting their way up 0.2%, and information technology, edging up 0.1%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks traded in a narrow range Thursday, within striking distance of all-time highs, ahead of major tech company earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 11.84 points, to begin the session at 20.986.93, Boeing and McDonald's contributed the most to gains, while Chevron and Caterpillar had the greatest negative impact.
The S&P 500 gained 2.08 points to 2,389.53. Information technology was among the top S&P 500 performers in morning trade, while energy was the worst, dropping 1% as oil prices fell 2% on oversupply concerns.
The NASDAQ Composite perked 19 points to 6,044.23. Comcast, PayPal and Amazon.com were among the greatest contributors to gains in the NASDAQ
Ahead of the open, Comcast reported better-than-expected quarterly profit of 53 cents U.S. per share and revenue also above forecasts. Shares climbed nearly 4%, tracking for their best day since Feb. 3, 2016
Alphabet, Amazon.com, Intel, Microsoft, and Starbucks are among companies set to report after the closing bell.
Durable goods orders rose a less-than-expected 0.7% in March. Weekly jobless claims increased more than expected to 257,000.
Pending home sales fell 0.8% in March
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note were unchanged, maintaining yields at Wednesday’s 2.31%.
Oil prices slumped 92 cents at $48.70 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices faded $1.50 at $1,262.70 U.S. an ounce.
