Toronto stock may get off to a shaky start Wednesday on reports that Nortel Networks has fired its CEO, chief financial officer and controller and said it will delay the release of its first-quarter results. The telecom-gear maker also plans more restatements.

In other business news, Comcast has dropped its $47.9 billion bid for Walt Disney, saying Disney’s lack of interest in the deal would make it unsuccessful. Comcast also swung to a first-quarter profit and revived plans for a $1 billion stock buyback.

In this morning’s earnings news, EnCana Corp. says its first-quarter profit sank to US$290 million from US$837 million a year earlier. Earnings for the quarter ended March 31 amounted to US63¢ a share, compared with US$1.74 a share a year ago.

No economic data are slated to be released today in the United States.

Statistics Canada reported today that real gross domestic product slowed in the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia in 2003, but picked up steam in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

In London, the FTSE 100 Index is lower, pressured by uninspiring earnings results from companies such as Legal & General and Unilever. Markets in France and Germany are also trading lower.

In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average ended down 0.3%, or 40.59 points, at 12004.29, as market players locked in gains ahead of a long weekend. Markets in Japan will be closed for several days.

Shares in Hong Kong inched higher as many investors stayed out of the market while waiting to see whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week. The Hang Seng Index edged up 10.4 points to 12,165.31.

On Tuesday, losses in the technology and financial sectors kept the Toronto market under water. The S&P/TSX composite index fell 81.13 points to 8,535.02.

On Wall Street, blue chips made a small advance on positive corporate reports and U.S. consumer data.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 33.43 to 10,478.16, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 4.24 points to 2,032.53. The broader S&P 500 gained 2.62 to 1,138.15.