The Toronto stock market could be in for a slightly higher open following a commodity-stock led tumble as oil prices headed slightly higher.
The main TSX index fell 256 points or 2.5 per cent Monday as investors continued to react to last Thursday's much worse than expected U.S. employment report for June, which cast further doubt on an economic recovery being in place by the end of the year.
The slide was led by a retreat of almost four per cent in the energy sector as crude prices retreated for a fourth session. On Tuesday morning, the August crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 28 cents to US$64.33 a barrel, still down sharply from last week's highs
The drop in the price of crude has sent stocks falling as investors anticipate that a weaker world economy will mean less demand for energy.
The Canadian dollar moved up 0.12 of a cent to 86.39 cents US.
New York futures pointed to a weak open, Asian stocks moved lower while European bourses made headway.
Dow Jones industrial average futures rose eight points to 8,285. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures slipped 1.6 points to 893.9, while Nasdaq 100 index futures gained 2.5 points to 1,443.5.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 stock average was down 18.11 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 9,662.76.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 117.67, or 0.7 per cent, to 18,097.09 as a Chinese central bank researcher said that China's economy is improving and growth might top 7.5 per cent for the quarter that ended in June.
Growth is benefiting from Beijing's stimulus spending and rising investment and consumption, said Zhang Jianhua, chief of the bank's research bureau, in an article in the July issue of the bank's magazine, China Finance.
London's FTSE 100 index was up 0.8 per cent, Frankfurt's DAX rose 0.77 per cent while the Paris CAC 40 added 0.18 per cent.
Other commodity prices moved higher as copper gained three cents to US$2.28 a pound while the August bullion contract on the Nymex advanced $5.20 to US$929.50 an ounce.
Toronto investors will be looking to pharmacy chain operator The Jean Coutu Group (TSX: PJC.A) at the open. The company said Tuesday that quarterly net earnings came in at $10.3 million, or four cents per share, reversing year-earlier losses of $20.2 million or eight cents per share.
The profits came despite a loss of $30.9 million or 13 cents per share from its stake in Rite Aid, a U.S. drugstore business in which the company owns a stake.
In other corporate news, struggling U.S. automotive parts supplier Lear Corp. (NYSE: LEA) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after receiving the support it needed from lenders and bondholders.
Lear, based in Southfield, Mich., said its subsidiaries outside the U.S. and Canada are not part of the filings. The company has locations in five Ontario cities – Ajax, Kitchener, St. Thomas, Whitby and Windsor.
Manulife Financial Corp. (TSX: MFC) said Monday it would issue $1 billion in notes to boost its Tier 1 capital. The insurance company said the interest rate on the notes, which will be due Dec. 31, 2108, will be fixed at 7.405 per cent per year and starting on Dec. 31, 2019, and on every fifth anniversary after that, will be reset.
Thomson Reuters Corp. (TSX: TRI) has bought Streamlogics, a privately held webcasting firm. Terms of the deal for Toronto-based Streamlogics were not undisclosed.
Investors are also looking to Wednesday's kickoff of the U.S. second quarter earnings season. Aluminum maker Alcoa Inc. is expected to post a second-quarter loss of 37 cents per share. In the same period a year earlier, Alcoa earned 66 cents per share on revenue of US$7.6 billion.
08:51ET 07-07-09
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