he TSX Venture Exchange was off 43.23 points to 947.98.The Dow Jones industrial average, down well over 300 points late in the morning, but was off just 36.8 points to 8,541.11 at mid-afternoon Thursday after tumbling 733 points the previous day in its worst one-day plunge since 1987.
The Nasdaq composite index was ahead 6.12 points to 1,634.45 following a 151-point loss Wednesday while the S&P 500 index declined 8.3 points to 899.54 after losing 90 points in the prior session.
"There is some good news and a lot of bad news and I think if there is any type of bad news in anything that comes out, that's really what people are focusing on – which is indicative of a bear market really," said Jennifer Radman, associate portfolio manager at Caldwell Securities.
"You still have a lot of deleveraging going on, which means there are people out there that just have to sell regardless of what the value of their stock is worth."
The latest dive in the price of oil helped send the Canadian dollar down 0.15 of a cent to 84.03 cents U.S., while the latest snapshot on manufacturing showed a sharp deterioration in sales.
Statistics Canada reported that manufacturing sales declined 3.7 per cent to $52 billion in August. The slide was led by the petroleum and coal sectors, but declines were widespread as the transportation equipment industry fell 4.3 per cent.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve said Wednesday that regional manufacturing conditions weakened in October. The bank's regional index came in at a negative 37.5 compared with a positive 3.8 for September.
In other U.S. economic news, industrial production plunged 2.8 per cent last month, on top of a one per cent drop in August.
The Federal Reserve estimated that disruptions related to the hurricanes accounted for about 2.25 percentage points of the total drop in industrial production in September.
Also, consumer prices were flat last month rather than increasing as forecast. And claims for unemployment benefits fell by 16,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted level of 475,000 – a greater decline than anticipated.
While the credit markets are performing better than they were last week given unprecedented support by governments, they are hardly operating normally.
The ultra-safe three-month U.S. Treasury bill was yielding 0.44 per cent, higher than the 0.20 per cent reading on Wednesday.
The Toronto stock market's energy sector was down just over three per cent after plunging 12 per cent Wednesday. The November crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was down $4.21 at US$70.33 – after earlier slipping below US$70 for the first time since August 2007 – as new data showed much higher oil inventories in the U.S. last week.
EnCana Corp. (TSX: ECA) eased five cents to $44.25 as RCMP are investigate a second explosion targeting a gas pipeline near Dawson Creek, on the B.C.-Alberta border, belonging to the energy giant.
Suncor Energy (TSX: SU) lost $1.78 to $23.21.
Oil has lost more than half its value in three months from its July peak of US$147.27.
Other commodities were lower with the December copper contract on the Nymex down 12.5 cents to US$2.0855 a pound after Rio Tinto PLC, one of the world's biggest mining giants, warned of slowing demand from China, the world's biggest growth engine over the last few years.
"The Chinese economy is pausing for breath after spectacular GDP growth," the company's chief executive Tom Albanese said.
Teck Cominco Ltd. (TSX: TCK.B) retreated 86 cents to $14.60.
Gold declined $34.50 to US$804.50 an ounce, sending the sector down more than 10 per cent.
Goldcorp Inc. (TSX: G) fell back $3.97 to $23.81.
NovaGold Resources Inc. (TSX: NG) faded 74 cents to $3.99 after it reported a record third-quarter profit of $16.7 million on a $33.5-million pre-tax gain from the sale of its NovaGrernPower unit.
Other materials stocks dragging the TSX lower included Potash Corp., (TSX: POT) down $11.42 to $81.15.
The TSX financial sector was down 2.5 per cent, with Scotiabank (TSX: BNS) $1.26 lower to $42.24.
Losses for Canadian insurers were much steeper with Manulife Financial (TSX: MFC) down $1.95 or 6.5 per cent to $27.10.
In the U.S., Citigroup Inc. posted its fourth straight quarterly loss due to credit-related troubles and cut another 11,000 jobs during the third quarter. The company lost US$2.8 billion in the quarter compared with a year-ago profit of US$2.2 billion. The loss was narrower than analysts had expected but its shares fell 82 cents to US$15.41.
Merrill Lynch & Co., which has agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp., posted a quarterly net loss of US$5.1 billion and its shares gave back 86 cents to $17.38.
The FTSE 100 index was down 218.2 points or 5.35 per cent to 3,861.39 in London
despite more action by the Bank of England to free up lending. Germany's DAX was down 4.9 per cent while the French CAC-40 lost 5.9 per cent.
In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei slid 1,089.02 points to 8,458.45, its biggest drop since the 1987 stock market crash.
South Korea's main index dropped 9.25 per cent and Hong Kong's key index closed down 4.8 per cent.