The Toronto stock market was lower Tuesday as rising crude oil prices were offset by unfavourable data from Europe’s biggest economy.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index approached noon off 34.66 points to 11,946.96
The Canadian dollar dumped 0.19 cents to 97.20 cents U.S.
Among financials Manulife Financial ahead 14 cents to $11.05 while Royal Bank rose 37 cents to $48.94.
The base metals sector led decliners while March copper was off a penny at $3.45 U.S. a pound.
Ivanhoe Mines was the major decliner in the group, tumbling $3.12 or 14.66% to $18.16.
The drop came after international mining giant Rio Tinto was successful in its arbitration challenge against certain provisions of a "poison pill" defence adopted by Ivanhoe aimed at preventing an unwanted takeover.
Elsewhere in the sector, HudBay Minerals rose 11 cents to $10.39.
The gold sector was little changed as Kinross Gold Corp. faded nine cents to $12.95.
In other corporate news, Whistler Blackcomb Holdings Inc. shares gained 10 cents to $9.90 after it said it booked net earnings of $15.1 million in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. The ski and mountain resort earned 40 cents per share during that period, when Whistler Blackcomb became a public company.
Troubled Chinese timberland owner Sino-Forest Corp. said Monday that it will not make a $9.8-million U.S. interest payment due this week and that it will miss deadlines to release both its third-quarter results and a report on fraud allegations.
There was some rare good news from the euro-zone as a closely-watched survey showed that German investor sentiment rose in December following nine straight falls.
ZEW’s main investor sentiment index for December rose 1.4 points to minus 53.8 points overall. However, analysts had forecast a bigger rise to minus 52.
The survey also recorded a five-point rise in economic sentiment for the 17-nation euro-zone, taking the index up to minus 54.1 point.
ZEW said the increases may reflect some optimism over last Friday’s deal to adopt a new European Union fiscal pact that would see a central authority overseeing budgets and impose tighter controls on spending by member countries. This would be backed up by automatic penalties if countries spend too much.
But the waters were murkied later by a decision from the German chancellor (see below).
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange settled 12.11 points to 1,478.81, while the Nasdaq Canada index ducked back down 3.96 points to 378.64
All but two of the 14 Toronto subgroups were lower at the lunch break. Metals and mining stocks tumbled 2.3%, materials shed 0.9%, while gold stocks were 0.8% to the bad.
The two gainers were energy, up 0.4%, and real-estate issues, up 0.2%.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks pared earlier gains Tuesday following reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the idea of increasing Europe's bailout fund.
The Dow Jones Industrials remained ahead 58.05 points to 12,079.40.
The S&P 500 went up 6.42 points, to 1,242.89, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 3.22 points to 2,615.48. All the major indexes started the day about 1% higher.
The pullback came after a Dow Jones report said that Merkel has rejected suggestions to raise the funding limit for the European Stability Mechanism, or ESM, which currently stands at €500 billion. The fund goes into effect next year and may run alongside the €440 billion European Financial Stability Facility.
U.S. stocks started the day with solid gains thanks to an initial void of bad news out of Europe. Though political leaders have been taking steps toward a resolution for the region's debt problems, the details have yet to be worked out.
Investors are on watch for possible downgrades on European country credit ratings from Standard and Poor's, which warned last week that it may strip some of Europe's biggest economies, like Germany and France, of their AAA-rating.
Former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine is back to testify before Congress Tuesday, this time flanked by two former colleagues from the brokerage's parent company, MF Global Holdings: Chief operating officer Bradley Abelow and chief financial officer Henri Steenkamp.
Shares of electronics retailer Best Buy got slammed after the company reported earnings that fell far short of forecasts.
Intel warned that it will badly miss its sales forecast for the current quarter on Monday, because of the worldwide hard drive shortage caused by massive floods in Thailand. Shares of
Intel dropped nearly 4% in trading Monday, and continued to slip on Tuesday.
Netflix's continued to rise, on chatter that the company could be acquired by Verizon. On Monday, a spokesman for Netflix said the company doesn't comment on speculation.
On the economic front, retail sales for the month of November rose 0.2%, which was much lower than expected, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. But the disappointing report had little impact on futures.
Retail sales were expected to have increased by 0.6%, after a 0.5% increase the month prior.
Investors will also be awaiting news from the Federal Reserve, which is expected to hold interest rates at 0.25% for December.
The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury sagged, pushing the yield up to 2.03%, from 2.01% late Monday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil for January delivery grew $2.08 to $99.85 U.S. a barrel.
Gold futures for February delivery rose $7.50 to $1,675.70 U.S. an ounce.
