TSX lower amid slew of good earnings data; dollar takes dip

TORONTO — The Toronto stock market closed lower Thursday as traders waded through a flood of Canadian earnings news and watched Twitter stock skyrocket as the year’s most anticipated IPO got underway.

The S& P/ TSX composite index declined 86.21 points to 13,294.2, dragged lower by mining and energy stocks.

Twitter stock started trading late- morning Thursday and quickly soared about 90 per cent to $ 50.09 from the initial public offering price of US$ 26, which had been set Wednesday night. The stock later closed at $ 44.90.

But despite Twitter’s strong early performance, analysts observed that there will likely be other opportunities to own the stock.

“I think right now, wait and see what happens,” said Allan Small, senior adviser at DWM Securities, who observed that Twitter has yet to be profitable.

“I don’t think I would be the first guy buying shares today. I would want to see where the dust settles, see where it trades early next week and take it from there.”

The Canadian dollar was down 0.4 of a cent to 95.59 cents US as the greenback strengthened in the wake of a surprise decision by the European Central Bank to cuts its key rate to 0.25 per cent from 0.5 per cent. Other data showed that U. S. gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of 2.8 per cent in the quarter, against the two per cent rise that economists had expected.

U. S. indexes failed to find lift from the GDP data.

The Dow Jones industrials was down 152.9 points to 15,593.98 as investors worried that signs of an improving U. S. economy will persuade the U. S. Federal Reserve to start cutting back on its US$ 85 billion of monthly bond purchases later this year.

The Nasdaq was down 74.61 points to 3,857.33 and the S& P 500 index fell 23.34 points to 1,747.15.

The energy sector was down 1.3 per cent as December crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange declined 60 cents to US$ 94.20 a barrel. Imperial Oil ( TSX: IMO) gave back $ 1.13 to C$ 44.31.