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Dec. 8, 2009 (Baystreet.ca) --
Bay Street stocks could extend their recent losses on Tuesday morning as a rising U.S. dollar continued to push commodities lower and Scotiabank missed expectations in the fourth quarter.
Shortly before 10 a.m. ET, the S&P/TSX Composite Index had fallen back 131.15 points, or 1.4%, to 11,358.48.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada announced it will keep its overnight rate target at 0.25%. The move was widely expected.
Crude oil prices are down, while gold is down sharply and copper has lost 4.4 cents to $3.165 U.S. a pound.
Scotiabank reported fourth-quarter net income available to common shareholders of $853 million or $0.83 per share, compared to $283 million or $0.28 per share last year. Analysts were looking for EPS of $0.87.
UTS Energy Corp said effective December 31, 2009, Dennis Sharp will step down as Chairman and will continue to serve as a director of UTS. Sharp has been Chairman of the UTS Board of Directors since 2006.
Eldorado Gold announced that Earl Price will retire as the company's Chief Financial Officer, effective December 31. The company has appointed Ed Miu as his successor.
Equinox Minerals announced that it has appointed Colin Johnstone as the company's chief operating officer, effective from January 2010.
Meanwhile, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported Canadian housing starts rose to 158,500 units, from 157,400 in the prior month.
The Canadian dollar stumbled 0.57 cents to 94.46 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
All but two of the 14 TSX subgroups began the day in negative country. Global base metals and financials were 1.3% each to the bad, while metals and mining were off 1.1%.
The sole gainer was health-care, but 0.1% stronger. Information technology shares were flat at the outset.
The TSX Venture Exchange skidded 13.07 to 1,421.33, while the Nasdaq Canada index was up 3.13 points to 674.51.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks headed for a lower start Tuesday as a shake-up in world markets made its way across the Atlantic, adding to investor uneasiness about the economy.
Indeed, in the first half-hour of trading, the Dow Jones Industrials had given back 125.08 points, or 1.2%, to 10,265.03, while the S&P 500 faded 12.90 points to 1,090.35, while the Nasdaq gave back 25.76 points to 2,163.85.
Stocks ended mixed in a choppy session Monday as investors weighed a stronger dollar, falling oil and gold prices, and comments from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that cooled worries about higher interest rates.
One expert said that Wall Street is following declining stock indexes in London, Paris and Frankfurt, which stem from a disappointing report on German industrial output.
The Nasdaq's Dubai index has plunged since late November, when state-controlled Dubai World said it would have to postpone payments on its estimated $59 billion in debt.
Dubai World has since stated that it would restructure half the debt, which stems from massive construction projects such as an artificial, palm-shaped residential island and a skyscraper intended to be the tallest in the world.
President Obama is due to speak on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington at 11:25 a.m. ET. He is expected to propose re-allocating $200 billion U.S. from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to fund new job creation efforts.
His comments will come on the heels of some encouraging signs in the two-year-old employment decline. In a survey released early Tuesday, employment services company Manpower Inc. said fewer companies plan to cut jobs in the first quarter of 2010.
Last Friday, the November jobs report showed the smallest monthly decline in payrolls since the recession started in late 2007.
At 10 a.m. ET, the House Financial Services Committee was to hold a hearing on private sector and government response to the mortgage foreclosure crisis.
A Labor Department report on job openings and labour turnover in October was expected at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Kroger reported third-quarter financial results before the opening bell. The grocery chain reported a net loss of $1.35 U.S. per diluted share. But without including charges related to a wind-down of one of its divisions, net earnings would have been 27 cents U.S. per diluted share.
General Motors was scheduled to issue an update on its turnaround efforts in a press conference at 8:30 a.m. ET. New chief executive Ed Whitacre was originally scheduled to speak, a week after he and the GM board sought and received the resignation of CEO Fritz Henderson.
But Whitacre was dropped from the update and will be replaced by two lower-level executives.
Treasury prices shot higher, dropping yields to 3.35% from Monday's 3.43%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The price of a barrel of oil lost $1.16 to 72.66 cents U.S.
Gold prices skidded $15 to $1,149 an ounce U.S.