TSX stumbles out of gate

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Gold weighs on market Feb. 8, 2010 (Baystreet.ca) -- Canadian stocks may struggle to extend Friday's late hour rally Monday morning, as commodity prices have failed to move up convincingly and were hovering just above their monthly lows. Moreover, the last hour rally in Friday was seen more of a short covering after the main index had hit its multi-month lows. The S&P/TSX Composite Index fell back 71.73 points in the first half-hour of trading, to 11,151.39. In corporate news, educational publisher McGraw-Hill Ryerson reported fourth-quarter earnings of $1.83, up from $1.73 in the previous year. Potash stocks may be in play on signals of improved demand for potash. Canpotex Ltd. said it has reached an agreement with Sinofert on a spot sale of approximately 350,000 MT of Canadian potash at competitive prices. With this, the company is now fully committed on sales through the first quarter of 2010. Canpotex is the offshore marketing company owned by the three Saskatchewan potash producing companies, Agrium Inc., Mosaic Canada Crop Nutrition, LP, a subsidiary of The Mosaic Company and Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. Online search service provider Multiplied Media said that it has agreed to acquire UnoMobi Inc. together with its wholly-owned subsidiary, Innovation Fund III LLC, for $6.175 million. Commercial forestry plantation operator Sino-Forest said it has completed the acquisition of Mandra Forestry Holdings. Information technology provider WebTech Wireless noted that its real-time passenger information service was officially launched on February 4 by the Societe de Transport de Laval. Logistic services provider Vitran Corp. said its fourth-quarter net loss narrowed to $0.14 per share from $5.85 per share in the prior-year period. Broadband wireless communications service provider Wi-LAN announced that the company has signed a letter of intent to settle a lawsuit filed against it by TELUS. Drug delivery company IntelGenx Corp. announced receipt of a Complete Response Letter from the U.S. FDA for its antidepressant CPI-300. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners slipped to loss reporting a fourth-quarter net loss of $0.10 per share compared with a profit of $0.55 per share in the prior-year period. Modular structures rental operator Black Diamond Group said Friday that it has completed the acquisition of all of the shares of Paragon Energy Services (Saskatchewan) Ltd. for total consideration of $556,000. In economic news, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said housing starts were up 5.8% in January to a seasonally adjusted 186,000 units. Economists expected the annual rate of starts to come in at about 180,000. The Canadian dollar slipped 0.24 cents to 93.43 cents U.S. ON BAYSTREET All 14 TSX subgroups went south soon after the opening. Gold dropped off 1%, followed by health-care stocks, down 0.8%, and consumer staples, trailing Friday's close by 0.6%. The TSX Venture Exchange gained 6.35 points to 1,461.71, while the Nasdaq Canada index subtracted 7.78 points to 719.67. ON WALLSTREET In New York, stocks opened lower Monday as investors remained nervous about the debt situation in Europe. The Dow Jones industrial average trailed Friday's close by 70.21 points to 9,942.02. The S&P 500 index gave back 6.95 points to 1,059.24. The Nasdaq composite was off 13.32 points to open at 2,127.80. Stocks slumped last week amid worries about mounting debt problems in Greece and Spain and the outlook for the U.S. economic recovery. But Wall Street finished Friday's session with gains, thanks to a late-session rally led by tech shares. With no major U.S. economic reports due Monday, investors will remain focused on Europe's fiscal woes The U.S. dollar recovered from earlier weakness to trade higher against its main trading partners. The advance came as comments from Group of Seven finance ministers over the weekend failed to soothe concerns about Greece. Despite the stronger greenback, oil and gold prices held modest gains. In addition to concerns about Europe, traders are focused on the outlook for economic growth in the United States. Later in the week, investors will look to reports on the U.S. trade balance, monthly retail sales figures and the government's weekly jobless claims data. Lender CIT Group said it has tapped former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain to lead the company. Thain will serve as the company's chairman and chief executive. Toyota Motor has told dealers that it is working on a solution to problems with the brake system of its Prius hybrid sedan. Details about the fix are expected to be announced early this week. Among the major corporations reporting quarterly results this week are Dow components Coca-Cola and Walt Disney on Tuesday, and Sprint Nextel on Wednesday. With 314 companies, or 63% of the S&P 500, having reported results, earnings are on track to have risen 206% versus a year ago and revenues to have gained 7%, according to the latest results from tracker Thomson Reuters. The year-over-year jump is partly due to an abysmal fourth quarter of 2008, at the height of the financial crisis. Not surprisingly, financial companies are leading the recovery in quarterly results. Treasury prices slid, thus raising the yield on the 10-year note to 3.57% from Friday's 3.56%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions. The price of a barrel of oil fell 16 cents to $71.03 U.S. Gold prices gained back $12 to $1,065 U.S.

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