TSX rally pauses

Toronto stocks were marginally lower on Thursday and pause for a breather after advancing for the last five days. Easing commodity prices weighed on the market as well. Shortly after noon, the S&P/TSX Composite Index had surrendered 70.34 points to 11,874.20 In corporate news, information technology provider MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates said that it has received a contract valued in excess of $22.5 million from Thales Alenia Space to provide a number of advanced technology solutions. Andean Resources announced that it has appointed Scott Brunsdon as Chief Financial Officer, effective January 6. Toromont Industries said Wednesday that it has varied and extended its offer to acquire all of the outstanding trust units of Enerflex Systems Income Fund and all of the exchangeable limited partnership units of Enerflex Holdings Limited Partnership. Toromont revised it offer price to $14.25. Coalcorp Mining Inc. said that it had entered into an agreement to sell the La Francia mine and all of the issued and outstanding shares of Adromi Capital Corp. to Goldman Sachs Group for over $150 million. Goldcorp. said it had agreed with New Gold to acquire 70% of the El Morro project from Xstrata Plc. Vehicle component maker Magna International took part in $10.5-million equity financing by Toronto based Lithium America Corp, which would help it to gain regular supply of its raw material. Pacific Rubiales Energy said it had entered into an agreement with Oleoducto Central SA to acquire preferential rights to use available capacity on its pipeline systems. Canadian airline operator Air Canada said system traffic rose 3.4% year over year in December 2009. The Canadian dollar gave back 0.23 cents to 96.68 cents U.S. ON BAYSTREET All 14 TSX subgroups were lower by lunch time. Global base metals and utilities were in a dead-heat for worst off, losing 1.1% each, followed by energy, down 0.9%. The TSX Venture Exchange advanced 2.06 points to 1,580.65, while the Nasdaq Canada index eased back 2.83 points to 729.02. ON WALLSTREET In New York, a rally in financial shares and some encouraging news for the retail sector helped stocks cut losses near midday Thursday. But weakness in tech and jitters about the December jobs report remained in play, keeping markets choppy. The Dow Jones Industrials had crept ahead 12.39 points by midday to 10,586.07. The broader S&P 500 nosed ahead 0.25 points to 1,137.39, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell back 5.78 points to 2,295.31. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo were among the big financial names rising. Select homebuilders and retailers rose too. But the tech sector was under pressure, dragging on the Nasdaq. Late-season holiday shoppers were a boon to the nation's chain stores, boosting December sales by 2.9%, a year after sales slumped 3.6% at the height of the recession. Discounters such as Costco fared particularly well. The company said sales at stores open a year or more, a retail metric known as same-store sales, rose 9% in December versus forecasts for a rise of 7.9%. Target said sales rose 1.8%, versus forecasts for a rise of 0.2%. The company also said fourth-quarter earnings should meet or top analysts' forecasts of $1.11 U.S. per share. Before Thursday's open, the government released its weekly report on jobless claims, which was slightly better than expected. The Labor Department reported that the number of first-time filers for unemployment insurance totaled 434,000 in the week ended Jan. 2, an increase of 1,000 compared to revised figures from the prior week. The number of initial jobless claims was expected to rise to 439,000, according to a consensus estimate of analysts polled by Briefing.com The report comes a day before the government's monthly reading of employment. The economists' forecast is for a decline of 35,000 jobs in December, with the unemployment rate holding at 10%. Treasury prices were flat at Wednesday's 3.82%. The price of a barrel of oil backpedaled 41 cents to $82.77 U.S. Gold prices fell six dollars to $1,130 an ounce U.S.