Toronto stock market to open lower amid mixed bag of U.S. earnings reports | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Toronto stock market to open lower amid mixed bag of U.S. earnings reports

TORONTO - The Toronto stock market looked to open slightly lower as investors play it cautious heading into the long Easter weekend and consolidate profits at the end of a positive week.

The Canadian dollar was up 0.03 of a cent to 90.79 cents US after sliding 1/3 of a cent Wednesday in the wake of the Bank of Canada's announcement that it was leaving its key rate at one per cent, where it's been since September 2010. The bank also lowered its forecast for first quarter growth this year to 1.5 per cent, from 2.5 per cent, but attributed the downgrade mostly to temporary impacts of a unusually severe winter.

U.S. futures were mainly lower amid a string of earnings from corporate heavyweights including Goldman Sachs, General Electric and PepsiCo.

The Dow Jones industrial futures were off six points to 16,325, the Nasdaq futures rose 3.3 points to 3,504.8 and the S&P 500 futures slipped 0.75 of a point to 1,852.

On Friday, General Electric posted lower first-quarter net income than a year ago because last year’s results included the sale of NBC Universal. GE earned $3 billion on revenue of $34.18 billion in the year’s first three months, down from $3.5 billion on revenue of $34.94 billion during the same period last year. Ex-items, GE earned 33 cents per share, down 15 per cent from a year ago but a penny better than what analysts expected and its shares were up 2.18 per cent in pre-market trading.

PepsiCo earned $1.22 billion, or 79 cents per share. Not including one-time items, it earned 83 cents per share, above the 75 cents per share Wall Street expected. A year ago, it earned $1.08 billion, or 69 cents per share. Revenue edged up to $12.62 billion, higher than the $12.39 billion analysts expected and its shares ran up 2.36 per cent in pre-market trading.

And Goldman Sachs posted quarterly earnings of $4.02 a share, beating analyst expectations of $3.45 and its shares were up 1.77 per cent in pre-market trading.

But IBM and Google racked up losses after delivering reports after the close Wednesday that missed expectations.

Stocks registered sharp advances on Wednesday as Chinese economic growth in the first quarter came in better than expected. Buying sentiment was also lifted by strong U.S. industrial production data while the Federal Reserve‘s latest regional survey showed that the economy picked up over the past two months as bitter winter weather subsided.

Commodities were positive as the May crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was six cents higher to US$103.82 a barrel.

May copper rose a cent to US$3.14 a pound while June bullion added a dime to US$1,303.60 an ounce.

In other corporate developments, Augusta Resource Corporation (TSX:AZC) says that proxy advisory firm Glass, Lewis & Co. is recommending that shareholders vote for the continuation of its shareholder rights plan. Augusta is the target of a hostile takeover by HudBay Minerals Inc. (TSX:HBM). Augusta says its shareholders will be able to vote on the shareholders rights plan on May 2, three days before the expiry of HudBay’s bid.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2014
The Canadian Press

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