Today is Sprott day

Today is Sprott day

RTGAM

In Canada, Eric Sprott's investment firm, Sprott Inc. begins trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange after a successful initial public offering valued the company at about $1.5-billion.[amp]nbsp;The stock is seen as a play on commodities, given that Mr. Sprott has invested heavily in a number of Canadian commodity producers.Copyright 2001 The Globe and Mail


Stock index futures suggested a higher start on Thursday morning, with investors digesting a number of economics reports, deals and earnings releases. Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average rose 46 points, to 12,925 about an hour before trading begins. Futures for the broader S[amp]amp;P 500 rose 5 points, to 1412.Reports suggest that Carl Icahn is ready to make a move for Yahoo Inc. by installing his own slate of directors, perhaps as early as today.

Yahoo shares rose 44 cents, to $27.58 (U.S.) in premarket trading.General Electric Co., stung by a disappointing first-quarter miss, has suggested that it will seek a buyer for its appliances business in a deal that could be worth between $5-billion and $8-billion.Investors got another glimpse of U.S. consumer spending early on Thursday when J.C. Penny Co. released first-quarter earnings that fell 50 per cent. The upside, though, is that the retailer issued a more upbeat forecast for the second quarter than analysts had been expecting.

The company's shares rose 4 per cent in premarket activity.Meanwhile, the U.S. Labor Department reported that U.S. employment conditions remain weak, with initial jobless claims rising by 6,000 last week to 371,000.In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.9 per cent. In Europe, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 rose 0.4 per cent and Germany's DAX index fell 0.1 per cent in afternoon trading - slim gains considering investors were treated to indications of surprisingly strong economic growth. The European economy grew 0.7 per cent in the first quarter over the fourth quarter of 2007, ahead of expectations. Germany, in particular, recorded its strongest growth in 12 years, expanding at a 1.5 per cent clip, quarter over quarter, that was nearly twice what economists had been expecting.