The markets today

TORONTO (CP) — North American stock indices were relatively flat Tuesday as investors waited for U.S. congress to start voting on a bill that would lower American corporate tax rates. The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index edged up 1.71 points to 16,133.35, after surpassing its previous record high of 16.136.59 during most of intraday trading. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 37.45 points at 24,754.75. The S&P 500 index gave back 8.69 points to 2,681.47 and the Nasdaq composite index was down 30.91 points to 6,963.85. Earlier Tuesday, Donald Trump’s Republican-sponsored tax bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, with the Senate expected to vote on it Tuesday night. The US$1.5 trillion package would cut the corporate tax rate to 21 per cent from 35 per cent and would slash taxes for the wealthy, with smaller cuts for middle-and low-income families. “I think the market has been anticipating this already for some time and the interesting thing is you can see the winners and losers from this because companies that are in the tech sector, a lot of these names are paying a very low rate of tax already,” said Allan Small, a senior investment adviser at Holliswealth. Losses for technology companies pulled U.S. stock indexes away from all-time highs reached consecutively over the past two trading sessions, as big names like Apple and Facebook saw their stock prices drop.