A.M. market numbers: December 8, 2009

| North American markets | International markets | Bonds | Currency | Commodities |

The Toronto stock market appeared headed for a fourth negative session as a rising American currency helped depress commodity prices and investors awaited an announcement by the Bank of Canada on interest rates later in the morning.

The Canadian dollar was down to 94.84 cents US ahead of the announcement. Economists expect the central bank to keep rates near zero until well into next year.

Investors also took in earnings from Bank of Nova Scotia which missed analyst estimates.

Scotiabank reported net income of $902 million or 83 cents per share for the fourth quarter, up from year-ago profit of $315 million or 28 cents per share. Analysts had expected 87 cents a share. Revenues came in at $3.7 billion, up from $2.5 billion last year.

New York futures also pointed to a weak open after reassurance from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that interest rates will remain low for some time had little positive effect on markets Monday. Bernanke also said the world’s largest economy was facing "formidable headwinds" – including a weak job market, cautious consumers and tight credit – that would limit the pace of recovery.

The Dow Jones industrial futures fell 81 points to 10,310, the Nasdaq futures declined 16 points to 1,768 while the S&P 500 futures moved down 8.5 points to 1,095.2.

The stronger American currency – and Bernanke’s comment that he expects inflation to stay low – pushed the February gold contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange down $9.70 to US$1,154.3 an ounce. March copper slipped two cents to US$3.19 a pound.

The January crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange gave back 85 cents to US$73.08 a barrel.

In corporate news, Xstrata PLC is recording about $2.4 billion in writedowns linked to its copper and nickel assets, many of them in Canada. The diversified global mining company, which acquired Toronto based nickel and copper producer Falconbridge several years ago, is slashing 670 jobs by closing Canadian copper and zinc smelters in northern Ontario by May 2010.

The majority of the impairment charges announced Tuesday, however, come from Xstrata cutting the value of its Australian, Norwegian and Canadian nickel assets.

Elsewhere in the mining sector, Teck Resources Ltd. said Monday it expects coal production in 2010 to be 23.5 million to 25 million tonnes and is planning for further production increases in 2011 and 2012. The Vancouver-based miner is currently forecasting coal production of 20 million tonnes and sales of 19.5 to 20 million tonnes for 2009.

In overseas trading, Asia closed lower as market sentiment was subdued by the Federal Reserve’s warning that the U.S. economy will continue to struggle.

London’s FTSE 100 index was down 1.49%, Frankfurt’s DAX fell 1.85% and the Paris CAC 40 fell 1.64%.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 stock average lost 0.3% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.2%.

(The Canadian Press)

North American markets (previous close)

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	Open	Change	YTD
Dow Jones	10,390.11	+1.21 or +0.01%	+18.39%
S&P 500	1,103.25	-2.73 or -0.25%	+22.14%
NASDAQ	2,189.61	-4.74 or -0.22%	+38.84%
TSX Composite	11,489.63	-21.17 or -0.18%	+27.84%

International markets

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	Open	Change	YTD
Nikkei	10,140.47	-27.13 or -0.27%	+14.46%
Hang Seng	22,060.52	-264.44 or -1.18%	+53.33%
SENSEX	17,227.68	+244.54 or +1.44%	+78.57%
FTSE 100	5,234.49	-76.17 or -1.43%	+18.05%
CAC 40	3,778.25	-61.80 or -1.61%	+17.41%
DAX	5,681.98	-102.77 or -1.78%	+18.12%

Bonds

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Bonds	$Current	$Previous	%Yield
Cdn. 10-year bond	103.78	103.53	3.28
Cdn. 30-year bond	118.35	118.35	3.90
U.S. 10-year bond	100.02	99.44	3.37
U.S. 30-year bond	100.34	99.84	4.35

Currency

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BoC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.9480	0.9409
US $	1.0549	1.0628

Euro Spot Rate	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.6409	0.6384
Euro	1.5603	1.5664

Commodities

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Gold	AM	PM
London Gold Fix ($US)	$1,164.25	$1,142.50

Oil	Open	Change
WTI Crude Future (US)	$72.87	-$1.06 or -1.43%

(12/08/09)