Lower mining stocks made for a flat Friday on the Toronto stock market with investors disinclined to make any big moves ahead of the weekend even as borrowing cost pressures eased for Italy and Spain.
The S&P/TSX composite index listed lower by 22.99 points, to 11,892.44, after yesterday’s 250-point-plus tumble.
The Canadian dollar inched up 0.18 cents to 97.35 cents U.S.
Even as oil prices declined, the energy sector was up as Cenovus Energy declined 47 cents to $32.35 and Imperial Oil climbed 88 cents to $42.88.
The base metals sector demurred while the December copper contract on the Nymex gained two cents to $3.40 U.S. a pound. Quadra FNX Mining rose 16 cents to $10.35 while Teck Resources lost 72 cents to $35.11.
The gold sector was down while Goldcorp Inc. declined 46 cents to $51.92.
Barrick Gold Corp. faded by 52 cents to $50.14. Government authorities in Pakistan have rejected a mining lease application by a joint venture including Barrick, which wants to build a multi-billion-dollar mine in a remote corner of the country.
The industrials sector was up with Canadian National Railways ahead $1.23 cents to $80.02 while Canadian Pacific Railway improved by 33 cents to $60.96.
In other corporate developments, Yamana Gold Inc. has started operations at its Mercedes mine in Sonora, Mexico. Yamana anticipates production to be 120,000 gold equivalent ounces each year, though the company said it’s looking to boost production to 130,000 ounces per year by 2013.
Yamana shares were down 11 cents to $15.83.
Economically speaking, traders also took in data showing that Canada’s annual inflation rate fell three-10ths of a point to 2.9% last month as the rate of price increases of most consumer goods measured by Statistics Canada moderated.
That’s the first time the annual inflation rate has been within the Bank of Canada’s 1-3% comfort zone since July. As well, the bank’s core inflation rate, which excludes volatile items such as energy and some foods, edged down one notch to 2.1%
Elsewhere, StatsCan reported that the composite leading indicators rose 0.2% in October, after a gain of 0.1% in September. The basket of 10 components showed five moving upwards -- most notably household spending -- four subsiding (manufacturing the worst off) and one flat.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange added 8.46 points to 1,607.67, while the Nasdaq Canada index faded 2.98 points to 399.53.
All but four of the 14 Toronto subgroups were down on the day. Gold shared the 'biggest loser' prize with the metals and mining group, each off 1.2%, while information technology lost 1.1%.
The three gainers were led by industrials, up 0.3%, while real-estate and financials crept up 0.1% each. Health-care issues were flat Friday.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stock trading was choppy Friday, following two days of steep declines, as investors kept close tabs on Europe's ongoing crisis and the latest debt committee news from Washington.
The Dow Jones Industrials remained positive 25.43 points by the end of the day to 11,796.20
The S&P 500 sifted off 0.48 points, to 1,215.65, while the Nasdaq Composite Index moved down 15.49 points to 2,572.50.
All three major indexes are down about 3% and are on track to post the worst weekly losses in two months.
Friday's jerky moves come at the end of a roller-coaster week on Wall Street. After making modest moves up and down at the start of the week, stocks sold off sharply Wednesday and Thursday on mounting euro-zone fears.
Shares of Salesforce.com dropped Friday, after the cloud-based software maker reported a $3.8-million U.S. third-quarter loss late Thursday.
HJ Heinz posted quarterly earnings early Friday that just beat analyst expectations, but its revenue of $2.8 billion U.S. missed estimates, sending shares slightly lower.
Shares of Ann Taylor fell even after the retailer posted earnings that beat expectations and said same-store sales rose 7.9%.
Hewlett-Packard's stock rose after the PC-maker added activist shareholder Ralph Whitworth to its board late Thursday. HP is on deck to report quarterly earnings early next week.
On Thursday, Angie's List, an online provider of consumer reviews, gained 25% in its public debut Thursday. But shares slipped nearly 4% Friday.
Markets around the world continue to gyrate as the euro-zone debt crisis has started spilling over to larger economies in Europe. Yields on Italian, Spanish and French government bonds have been rising amid doubts that European policymakers will be able to resolve the Continent's problems.
While efforts in Greece and Italy to tame the debt crisis have taken centre stage in recent weeks, investors are beginning to turn their attention to other euro-zone countries like Spain.
The other wild card investors are grappling with is the bipartisan debt committee's fast-approaching deadline. The super committee, by law, is supposed to vote on a plan by next Wednesday.
Economically speaking, the latest installment of the U.S. Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators Index was significantly better than expected.
The index rose 0.9% in October, following a 0.1% improvement the previous month. Analysts were expecting 0.6%.
The price on the 10-year Treasury faded, boosting the yield to 2.01% from Thursday’s 1.96%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil for October delivery fell $1.37 to $97.45 U.S. a barrel
Gold futures for December delivery added $4.90 to settle at $1,725.10 U.S. an ounce.
