TORONTO - The Toronto stock market headed for a lower open Thursday following three days of advances as economic growth data from China met expectations and traders looked to a two-day summit of European Union leaders.

The Canadian dollar was off 0.04 of a cent to 102.21 cents US after charging ahead almost a full U.S. cent on Wednesday amid rising copper prices.

New York futures were weak as traders took in earnings from investment bank Morgan Stanley and mobile phone maker Nokia.

The Dow Jones industrial futures dipped four points to 13,485, the Nasdaq futures were 6.5 points lower to 2,764 while the S&P 500 futures were off 3.1 points to 1,454.

Commodity prices failed to find lift from data showing that China’s economy grew 7.4 per cent from the year before in the three months ended in September, which was in line with economists’ expectations. That was slower than the second quarter’s 7.6 per cent growth but economists also pointed to quarter-on-quarter growth of 2.2 per cent, the biggest such gain in a year.

While indicating that the world’s second-biggest economy is recovering, analysts said the showing also indicated that there is no need for the government to inject further stimulus.

The November crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange declined 25 cents to US$91.87 a barrel.

December copper was unchanged at US$3.75 a pound following a five-cent run-up Wednesday, while December gold bullion pulled back $9.80 to US$1,743.20 an ounce.

Meanwhile, an EU summit starting later Thursday will see leaders debate tightening financial integration and creating a banking union as well as dealing with the financial needs of Greece and Spain.

Ahead of the meeting, German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed a proposal for a top European Union official to be given the power to veto member governments’ budgets in a bid to keep European countries from overspending in the future.

But with long-term proposals for overhauling the EU likely to play a leading role at this week’s summit, firm decisions are not expected on more immediate matters.

The eurozone financial crisis has focused on Spain in recent months. There are growing expectations the country, suffering from the after-effects of a building boom that went bust, will soon make a request for international help to deal with its finances.

Amid that expectation, Spain on Thursday raised €4.6 billion at a sharply lower cost. The Treasury sold €1.51 billion in 10-year bonds at an average interest rate of 5.46 per cent, down from 5.66 per cent in the last such auction Sept. 20.

Spain says it will soon decide whether to look to tap a European Central Bank bond-buying program largely designed to keep a lid on its borrowing costs.

On the earnings front, Morgan Stanley shares are up two per cent in pre-market trading after the bank reported higher net income and revenue for the third quarter. Excluding an accounting charge, the bank earned $535 million for common shareholders in July to September, up from $39 million a year ago. Revenue rose 18 per cent to $7.5 billion after excluding the charge, which beat the $6.4 billion that analysts had been expecting.

Nokia Corp. said Thursday that its third-quarter net loss widened to €969 million as revenue plunged 19 per cent and sales of its flagship Windows Phone fell under three million units. Investors, however, had been expecting an even bigger drop in sales, and sent shares in the company up 2.75 per cent in pre-market trading.

Nestle SA, the world’s biggest food and drink company, said its sales growth slowed to 11 per cent in the first nine months of 2012 as demand eased both in developed economies and emerging markets, where high growth is starting to cool off. The maker of Nescafe instant coffee, Jenny Craig weight loss products and Haagen-Dazs ice cream said sales rose to 67.6 billion Swiss francs through September, up from 60.9 billion francs in the same period last year.

European bourses were mixed as London's FTSE 100 index slipped 0.18 per cent and Frankfurt's DAX gained 0.29 per cent while the Paris CAC 40 was down 0.18 per cent.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index rose two per cent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.5 per cent.

In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index gained 1.2 per cent to the highest close in more than a month. The Shenzhen Composite Index gained 1.7 per cent.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2012