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Mar. 30, 2010 (Baystreet.ca) --
The Toronto stock market was little changed Tuesday afternoon despite another dose of solid U.S. consumer data. The S&P/TSX Composite Index was 14.49 points higher to end the day at 12,044.21 The base metals sector lost ground following a sharp rise on Monday even as the May copper contract on the Nymex added two cents to $3.56 U.S. a pound. First Quantum Minerals declined $6.63 -- or 7.2% -- to $85.93 while Teck Resources gained $1.00 to $44.19. Among gold stocks, Goldcorp Inc. was down 78 cents to $37.54. Energy stocks, such as Suncor Energy improved by 99 cents to $32.94 and Canadian Oil Sands Trust climbed 72 cents to $30.02. In the industrials sector, Bombardier Aerospace shares rose 10 cents to $6.10. It has a memorandum of understanding with Chinese leasing company CLC Leasing Co. The transport giant will offer pre-delivery payment financing, delivery financing and leasing solutions to customers of its CSeries, Q400 and CRJ aircraft. The consumer discretionary sector was ahead, with shares in auto parts giant Magna International up 39 cents to $63.72. The rise followed an announcement showing Ontario automakers are driving up production. Honda Canada said Tuesday it will start up a second shift and add 400 jobs at its No. 2 assembly plant in central Ontario early next year. Just last week, General Motors of Canada said that it will recall more than 700 laid-off employees at two of its Ontario plants. Research In Motion Ltd. was a drag on the TSX a day before the BlackBerry maker releases its latest earnings results. Its shares fell 83 cents to $76.43. Yellow Media Inc. units slipped a penny to $6.21 as the company announced an agreement to buy the Canpages business in a $225-million deal that will combine two of Canada's biggest publishers of advertising directories and local web search engines. Yellow Media will pay $75 million in cash and issue $150 million worth of promissory notes to an investor group led by private equity firm HM Capital Partners. Saputo Inc., Canada's biggest cheese maker, continued streamlining its operations Tuesday with plans to close a milk plant in Ontario and consolidate distribution in the Toronto area. Saputo said about 190 employees will be affected by the moves but about two-thirds of them -- 120 people -- will get a chance to relocate within the company's dairy products division and its shares rose 18 cents to $29.56. As first-quarter trading winds down, the TSX is up about 2%, with most of that gain coming in the last six weeks amid sentiment that economic conditions are improving. In economic news, Statistics Canada said the Industrial Product Price Index was unchanged in February, after advancing for the past three month. Meanwhile, the Raw Materials Price Index was up 0.4%, largely due to higher prices oft mineral fuels. The Canadian dollar picked up 0.19 cents to 98.10 cents U.S. ON BAYSTREET The 14 TSX subgroups were evenly split between gainers and losers. Energy powered the former group, picking up 1.2%, followed by industrials, ahead 0.6% and consumer discretionary stocks, up 0.4%. The losing groups were weighed mostly by gold's 1% slide, while the metals and mining group tied with materials for dubious runner-up, off 0.8% each. The TSX Venture Exchange slipped 0.49 points to 1,571.74. The Nasdaq Canada index fell back 8.49 points to 804.96. ON WALLSTREET In New York, blue chips ended at a fresh 18-month high and the rest of the market churned Tuesday as investors weighed a rise in consumer confidence, more weakness in the housing market and a stronger dollar. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 11.56 points to 10,907.42. The S&P 500 index inched ahead 0.05 points to 1,173.27, while the tech-rich Nasdaq moved up 6.33 points to 2,410.69 Stocks rose early in the session as investors welcomed a better-than-expected reading on consumer confidence and took in stride a report showing continued weakness in the housing market. But the advance petered out near midday after an extended run-up over the last few weeks. Bank shares slipped, dragging down the KBW Bank index by 0.6%. The afternoon saw the major stock indexes bouncing around both sides of the unchanged line before finally turning higher in the last hour. Gains in 3M, Verizon Communications and Hewlett-Packard gave the Dow a boost. Stocks have risen in six of the last seven weeks as investors looked past worries about a global debt crisis and instead focused on signs of an economic recovery. On Monday, the government said personal spending rose for the fifth month in a row. The market is in a bit of a tug-of-war right now, with Greece and other euro zone debt issues, questions about higher interest rates, higher taxes and the deficit all on the negative side Shares of the company surged to an all-time high Tuesday after the Wall Street Journal said late Monday that the company is developing an iPhone for the Verizon network. Currently, the iPhone is only available on the AT&T network. Apple shares gained 1.5%, AT&T shares lost 1.4% and Verizon shares added 3%. Verizon was one of few Dow gainers. The other big gainer was 3M. Economically speaking, the Consumer Confidence index rose to 52.5 in March from 46.4 in February, according to a report from the Conference Board, released shortly after the start of trading. Economists expected the index to rise to 51. Also, the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index showed that prices were down 0.4% in January, compared with December. Prices were down 0.7% from a year ago. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected prices to have fallen 0.6% in January versus a year earlier. In December, the index plunged 3.1%. The price of the benchmark 10-year note slipped, to raise the yield to 3.87% from Monday's 3.86%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions. The price of a barrel of oil gained 24 cents to $82.34 U.S. Gold prices gave back seven dollars to $1,104 U.S.