Feb. 5, 2009 (Baystreet.ca) --
10:28 am EST
Investors saw their mood turn a little blue at the outset Thursday, with markets on both sides of the border losing ground.
The S&P TSX Composite Index subsided 62.73 points in the first half-hour, to 8,630.36.
Bombardier Inc., the world's third- largest maker of commercial aircraft, plans to cut 1,360 jobs, or 4.5% of its workforce, as deliveries of business jets are projected to drop this year.
Demand has weakened for its Learjet and Challenger planes, which led to the job-cut decision.
Research In Motion Ltd. won Certicom Corp.'s support for its $131 million bid for the Canadian software maker, boosting its chances of winning a takeover battle against VeriSign Inc. Research In Motion's $3 a share offer is "superior" and VeriSign has until Feb. 11 to amend its $2.10 bid. Certicom had already accepted VeriSign's offer. RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry e-mail phone, would use Certicom's encryption software to make its transmissions more secure.
Domtar Corp., North America's largest maker of office paper, said its fourth-quarter loss widened to $676 million as it reduced production capacity to contend with falling paper demand.
The per-share net loss of $1.31 compares with a year-earlier loss of $26 million, or five cents a share, Montreal-based Domtar said today in a statement. The loss excluding one-time items was four cents a share. On that basis, analysts expected profit of six cents, the average of 15 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
On the economic front, Canada's 2009 budget will generate stimulus of $32 billion over two years for the world's eighth-largest economy, about one-fifth less than the level estimated by the government, the head of Parliament's budget office said today. Kevin Page told lawmakers the Canadian government's estimate of a $40 billion stimulus from its budget over the next two years is a "maximum or gross" projection.
The Canadian dollar advanced 0.20 cents to $81.37 cents U.S.
BAYSTREET
Of the 13 TSX sub-groups, 10 were listing downward, weighed down by energy, off 1.8%, industrials, down 1.6%, and health-care stocks, off 1.3%.
The three gainers were gold, ahead 2.1%, materials, up 1.5%, and consumer staples, picking up 1.1%.
The TSX Venture Exchange was up 4.28 points to 894.33, while the NASDAQ Canada index was 8.44 points behind, at 542.17
ON WALLSTREET
The Dow Jones industrials index continued its decline, losing 107.21 points to 7.849.45 The Standard & Poor's 500 index slid 10.95 points to 821.28. The NASDAQ composite index stumbled 13.18 points to 1,501.87.
On the economic front, weekly jobless claims rose 35,000 to 626,000, hitting the highest level in 26 years. The figure was worse than what economists were expecting, according to a Briefing.com survey.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, reported a better-than-expected 2.1% increase in same-store sales last month, helped by strength in both grocery and health products.
Sales at rival Target fell 3.3% in January, although the results were much better than analysts had feared. Warehouse club operator Costco said its monthly sales fell 2%.
After the market close Wednesday, networking equipment maker Cisco Systems reported fiscal second-quarter results that were ahead of Wall Street's estimates.
But Cisco also said that it expects a 15% to 20% decline in sales in the current quarter. Shares slipped 1.5% Thursday.
Fast food restaurant operator Burger King said its net income declined 10% from a year earlier, while the company revised lower its outlook for 2009.
Crude prices slipped, falling two cents to $40.30 U.S. a barrel in NYMEX trading Thursday.
Gold raced ahead $22.80 to $925.00 U.S. an ounce in early trading.