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Stocks Flat as Thursday Dawns
Equities in Toronto opened little changed on Thursday as losses in telecom and financials companies curbed strong gains in energy shares benefiting from surging oil prices.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index squeaked up 1.54 points to start trading Thursday at 15,531.51
The Canadian dollar went up 0.11 cents to 79.3 cents U.S.
Kinder Morgan Canada reported on Wednesday an 5.1% drop in first-quarter profit hurt by a fall in volumes of crude oil and refined products transports.
Kinder shares ducked lower four cents to $17.95.
Canadian Pacific Railway's first-quarter profit topped analysts' expectations as the railroad operator shipped higher volumes of commodities such as potash and crude oil, offsetting the impact of higher expenses.
CIBC raised its target price on the stock to $270.00 from $263.00. CP shares fell 66 cents to $225.63.
GrafTech International raised $525 million in its U.S. initial public offering on Wednesday, netting owner Brookfield Asset Management Inc a smaller-than-expected windfall.
Brookfield shares in Toronto eased 21 cents to $49.30.
CIBC raised the target price on Roots Corp. to $14.00 from $12.00. Roots shares slid 18 cents, or 1.4%, to $12.42.
On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported that the number of regular Employment Insurance beneficiaries decreased by 11,300, or 2.3%, in February to 480,200, the lowest level since comparable data became available in 1997.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange settled 0.51 points to 802.09
All but three of 12 TSX subgroups were lower in the first hour, with consumer discretionary issues down 0.5%, information technology sliding 0.4%, and consumer staples swooning 0.3%.
The three gainers were energy, up 1.2%, gold, nosing ahead 0.3%, and health-care edging up 0.1%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks traded lower on Thursday after a major Asian chipmaker delivered a disappointing forecast which dragged the technology sector lower. Investors also fretted over rising interest rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average subtracted 69.28 points to 24,678.79, with Apple and Procter & Gamble as the worst-performing stocks in the index.
The S&P 500 lost 11.91 points to 2,696.73, with technology falling 1%.
The NASDAQ Composite index let go of 33 points to 7,262.23
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing said Thursday it expects second-quarter revenue to range between $7.8 billion and $7.9 billion, well below a Wall Street consensus estimate of $8.8 billion.
The announcement weighed on the entire technology sector. Shares of Apple fell nearly 2%, while Nvidia, Micron and Advanced Micro Devices all fell at least 1%.
The corporate earnings season continued on Thursday, as Procter & Gamble, Bank of New York Mellon and Blackstone all reported better-than-expected earnings.
Earnings have been strong thus far. According to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, 79% of the S&P 500 companies that had reported through Wednesday morning surpassed earnings expectations. Meanwhile, 83% of those companies topped sales estimates.
Elsewhere in corporate news, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed the company has 100 million Prime members in his annual letter to shareholders. The stock rose 2%.
In data news, weekly jobless claims totaled 232,000, slightly more than expected. The Philadelphia Fed index hit 23.2 for April, higher than estimates of 20.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note faltered, raising yields to 2.90% from Wednesday’s 2.88%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices gained 10 cents a barrel to $68.57 U.S.
Gold prices fell $2.70 to $1,350.80 U.S. an ounce.
