Market wrap: July 10, 2009

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

The Toronto stock market posted a small loss on Friday and a substantial loss for the week as investors found themselves unable to shake pessimism about whether the economy will rebound as quickly as they had hoped.

The S&P/TSX composite index was down 26.79 points to 9,747.13. The small loss on the TSX came as oil prices fell 52 cents to US$59.89 a barrel.

The index ended the week down 5.2% in response to weak economic data and expectations that second-quarter earnings results will disappoint.

Adrian Mastracci, portfolio manager with KCM Wealth Management in Vancouver, said investors are rethinking earlier optimism that sent the TSX roaring 41% from its trough on March 9 to its peak on June 11.

Since then, the index has given up 9%.

"Investors by and large are really an optimistic bunch. They do like to see good numbers and there were better numbers than before. As the saying goes, they were less bad," Mastracci said.

"But those less bad numbers were really not good numbers at all, and I think we’ve come to the realization that maybe it was just us wanting to be optimistic and there was no real reason to be as optimistic as we were."

In “less bad” economic data, Canada lost a surprisingly low 7,400 jobs last month, an improvement from the 42,000 lost in May and much fewer than the 35,000 lost jobs that were expected for June.

However, the good news ended there since full-time employment and private sector jobs — the two most reliable indicators of labour market strength — both continued to fall sharply.

"If you dig down a little deeper, it looks to me like we’re bringing on part-time jobs but we’re losing full-time jobs, so what we’re actually doing is we have a net loss that hasn’t shown up in the figures yet,” Mastracci said.

The unemployment rate rose two-tenths of a point to 8.6%, largely because more Canadians were looking for work during the month.

The news had little impact on the loonie, which lost 0.18 cent to 85.86 cents US.

In other economic news, Statistics Canada reported that Canada’s trade deficit with the world widened to $1.4 billion in May from $389 million in April.

The agency said exports and imports declined for the third straight month in May and have been trending downwards since July 2008.

New York markets were flat as investors took in news that the U.S. May trade deficit was $26 billion, better than the $30-billion consensus estimate, while China’s trade surplus for June fell to US$8.3 billion, well below the $15.5-billion consensus estimate.

The Dow Jones industrials lost 36.65 points to 8,146.52 while the Nasdaq composite index added 3.48 points to 1,756.03. The S&P 500 index lost 3.55 points to 879.13.

The Toronto energy sector was down 0.1% while the financial sector was flat.

The base metals sector fell one per cent. Major miner Teck Resources (TSX:TCK.B) fell 46 cents or 2.5 per cent to $17.97.

In corporate news, General Motors Corp. has emerged from bankruptcy protection after signing papers to transfer the bulk of its assets to a new, leaner company majority owned by the U.S. government.

One bankruptcy expert called GM’s 40-day case the fastest ever for a company of its size.

In Canada, troubled media conglomerate Canwest Global Communications Corp. reported a third-quarter net loss of $110 million, or 62 cents per share, for the quarter ended May 31.

Canwest said the most recent loss includes a $247-million goodwill impairment charge in its publishing operations. Shares in the company were up 4.5 cents or 69% to 11 cents after falling more than 50% Thursday.

(THE CANADIAN PRESS)

North American markets

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	Close	Change	YTD
Dow Jones	8,146.52	-36.65 or -0.45%	-7.18%
S&P 500	879.13	-3.55 or -0.40%	-2.67%
NASDAQ	1,756.03	+3.48 or +0.20%	+11.35%
TSX Composite	9,747.13	-26.79 or -0.27%	+8.45%

International markets

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	Close	Change	YTD
Nikkei	9,287.28	-3.78 or -0.04%	+4.83%
Hang Seng	17,708.42	-82.17 or -0.46%	+23.08%
SENSEX	13,504.22	-253.24 or -1.84%	+39.98%
FTSE 100	4,127.17	-31.49 or -0.76%	-6.92%
CAC 40	2,983.10	-42.84 or -1.42%	-7.30%
DAX	4,576.31	-53.76 or -1.16%	-4.86%

Bonds

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Bonds	$Current	$Previous	%Yield
Cdn. 10-year bond	104.06	103.80	3.27
Cdn. 30-year bond	119.51	119.35	3.85
U.S. 10-year bond	98.59	97.81	3.29
U.S. 30-year bond	100.97	99.64	4.19

Currency

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BoC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.8587	0.8604
US $	1.1647	1.1623

Euro Spot Rate	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.6155	0.6129
Euro	1.6246	1.6316

Commodities

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Gold	AM	PM
London Gold Fix ($US)	$910.00	$913.00

Oil	Close	Change
WTI Crude Future (US)	$59.77	-0.640 or -1.06%

(07/10/09)