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Nov. 18, 2009 (Baystreet.ca) --
Toronto stocks moved closer to breakeven Wednesday, backing off multi-month highs. Gold prices backed off their record levels, while a downgrade for Research in Motion has also dragged the Bay Street market lower.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index finally 22.69 points to 11,652.69. The index has now finished the past four sessions ahead.
Gold stocks are down, Barrick Gold dropped 2.9% to $46.10, Iamgold is down 1.6% to $19.60 and Agnico-Eagle Mines is down 1.3% to $64.05.
Tech stocks are down, as RIM lost 2% to $63.25 after being downgraded to "market perform" from "outperform" at BMO Capital Markets.
Meanwhile, consumer staples stocks were up, as Metro Inc. gained 2.2% to $36.90 after the company reported fourth-quarter net earnings of $0.77 per share, up from $0.65 per share last year.
Sears Canada rose 5% to $24.45. The company posted third-quarter net earnings of $47.1 million or $0.44 per share, compared to $59.3 million or $0.55 per share in the last-year quarter.
In other corporate news, Niko Resources added 3.4% to $87.59 after the company reached a deal to acquire Black Gold in a transaction worth about $310 million.
Oncolytics Biotech plunged 16.9% to $3.00 after the company entered into an underwriting agreement for an offering of 4.25 million units at a price of $3.00 U.S. per unit to raise gross proceeds of $12.75 million U.S.
Pinetree Capital leaped 3.3% to $1.86 after the company announced that it acquired ownership of three million common shares of Galena Capital Corp., which represents approximately 5.3% of the company.
Cossette gained 2.6% to $8.00 after Cosmos Capital said it might be willing to raise its takeover bid.
Dollarama Inc. added 2.3% to $19.70 after the stock was initiated with an Outperform rating and a price target of $23 at Credit Suisse.
On the economic front, consumer prices rose 0.1% in October compared with October 2008, following a 0.9% decline in September, according to Statistics Canada.
Still, inflation rose at a slightly slower pace than forecast. Economists were looking for an annual increase of 0.3%.
The Canadian dollar lost 0.15 cents to 94.85 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
The 14 TSX subgroups were equally divided between winners and losers. Real-estate topped the list of seven winners, gaining 1.4%, followed by metals and mining and consumer staples, up 1.2% each.
The seven slumping stocks were weighed mostly by gold and information technology, off 1.4% each, and global base metals, down 0.7%.
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 8.02 points to 1,394.06, while the Nasdaq Canada index slid 13.23 points to 659.81.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, equities closed slightly lower Wednesday, paring deeper losses, after a drop in new home construction made investors jittery about the economic recovery and wary earnings outlooks weighed on the technology sector.
The Dow Jones Industrials fell just short of breaking even, only 11.11 points by the final bell, to 10,426.31. The S&P 500 index moved down 0.52 points to 1,109.80 while the Nasdaq composite index surrendered 10.64 points to 2,193.14.
Stocks opened lower and struggled for most of the day before moving off session lows in the last 30 minutes of trade.
The modest retreat, which came one day after the major indexes closed at their highest levels in 13-months, was sparked by government data that showed initial construction of new single-family homes fell to a six-month low in October.
The unexpected drop came despite ongoing efforts by the government to stimulate the battered housing industry, and highlighted fears that stocks may have gotten ahead of economic reality.
Tech name Hewlett-Packard was among leading decliners on the Dow, while Microsoft bucked the trend.
Meanwhile, the dollar fell broadly against rival currencies, with the euro climbing near $1.50 U.S. at one point.
The weak dollar helped push gold prices to another all-time high, while oil prices closed above $79 a barrel.
Investors have looked to the dollar for direction in recent weeks, with a softer greenback normally reflecting a stronger appetite for risky assets such as commodities and stocks.
But with the major indexes up some 30% from the lows of early March, many investors have become reluctant to push the market higher until they see more concrete signs that an economic recovery is underway.
Salesforce.com, which makes Web-based business software, reported third-quarter earnings that were in line with analyst expectations. But the results also showed a slowdown in contracts for new business, which sent shares down more than 3%.
Shares of Autodesk plunged 10% after the maker of computer-aided drafting software forecast fourth-quarter earnings that were below Wall Street's consensus view.
On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs said that it is launching a $500-million U.S. initiative aimed at propping up small businesses.
Economically speaking, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that housing starts fell more than 10% to an annual rate of 529,000 in October, the lowest level in six months.
An annual rate of 600,000 housing starts was expected, according to a forecast from Briefing.com consensus. The revised rate for September was 592,000.
The government reported that the annual rate of housing permits fell 4% to 552,000 in October, from the revised September rate of 575,000. This was lower than the 580,000 permits expected for October, according to Briefing.com consensus.
The government also said initial construction of new single-family homes fell to a six-month low in October. A separate report showed consumer prices rose last month, but were essentially unchanged from a year ago.
The annual rate of housing permits fell 4% to 552,000 in October, from the revised September rate of 575,000. This was lower than the 580,000 permits expected for October, according to Briefing.com consensus.
What's more, the government reported its Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation, rose 0.3%.
The CPI was expected to rise 0.2% in October, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
The core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2% in October. That was slightly more than the 0.1% increase expected for October, according to Briefing.com consensus.
Treasury prices dipped, raising the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.36% from Tuesday's 3.32%. Prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The price of a barrel of oil gained 44 cents to $79.69 U.S.
Gold prices added two dollars to their record heights, to $1,141 U.S. an ounce.