Yahoo Finance 
Equities Negative by Noon
Stocks in Toronto said goodbye to earlier gains as morning became afternoon Thursday, with railway stocks and some natural resource names rising while gold miners weighed.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index capsized 29.87 points to greet noon Thursday at 16,106.72
The Canadian dollar slipped 0.22 cents to 77.83 cents U.S.
The energy group slipped while Cenovus Energy rose 0.8% to $11.97 after the oil sands company said it will cut an extra 15% of its workforce as part of a cost-cutting drive.
Bombardier lost 0.6% to $3.11 after the plane and train maker forecast 2018 revenue well short of analysts' estimates.
Canadian National Railway was up 0.6% at $103.87.
The largest percentage gainer on the TSX was Mitel Network, which rose 10.8% to $10.47 after an analyst upgraded the stock to a "buy", while the largest decliner was Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, down 2.7% to $27.55.
Goldcorp fell 1%to $15.82 and Barrick Gold was down 0.6% at $18.02 as gold prices pulled back from a one-week high.
On the economic front, Statistics Canada revealed In October, new house prices in Canada rose 3.5% year over year, down from this year's largest increase of 3.9%.
Vancouver, up 8.4%, and London, ahead 8.1%, had the largest 12-month increases among the surveyed metropolitan areas.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange improved 3.47 points to 802.04
All but two of the 12 TSX subgroups were lower midday, as health-care went south 1.5%, telecoms skidded 0.8%, and consumer staples were 0.4% to the bad.
Only information technology, up 0.5%, and real-estate, more solid by 0.2%, escaped the negative vibes.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks traded higher on Thursday after Disney agreed to buy some of 21st Century Fox's assets.
The Dow Jones Industrials improved 25.71 points on top of Wednesday’s record close to 24,611.14, with Disney leading advancers.
The S&P 500 picked up 0.97 points to 2,666.51, with information technology as the best-performing sector.
The NASDAQ composite index attached 14.44 points to 6,890.23
Disney said Thursday it will pay $52.4 billion in stock to buy Fox's movie studios, network Nat Geo, and Asian pay-TV operator Star TV, among other assets.
The acquisition bolsters Disney's plans to become a dominant streaming service platform, making it a bigger threat to Netflix.
Shares of Disney sprouted 1.3% higher, while Fox gained 4% by noon ET
The deal comes at a time when mega-deals have fallen significantly. PwC said in a report Thursday that mega-deals —those worth more than $5 billion — are down this year to 38 from 58 in 2016.
Elsewhere, Pier 1 Imports took a beating of 29.2% in its stock price on disappointing quarterly figures.
On Thursday, Wall Street received a slew of economic data. Weekly jobless claims totaled 225,000, well below an estimate of 239,000.
Meanwhile, retail sales rose 0.8% in November versus an estimated increase of 0.3%.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note descended, raising yields to 2.37% from Wednesday’s 2.35%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices gained 18 cents a barrel to $56.78 U.S.
Gold prices moved up $5.90 to $1,254.50 U.S. an ounce.
