Halloween has brought tricks rather than treats for investors, who will be struggling with bad economic news today. Wall Street futures are down, pointing to a negative start for stocks.

Statistics Canada is reporting that economic activity contracted sharply in August. Gross domestic product plummeted 0.7%.

The last time the economy experienced such a large setback was in September 2001, when GDP fell 0.6%. The good news is that the setback is largely the result of the blackout in Ontario; that province represents about 42% of the total Canadian economy.

Reduced electricity generation hampered manufacturing plants and service producing establishments, hindering production, transportation and distribution of goods as well as the sales and delivery of a wide range of business, personal and government services.

The public administration sector was strongly affected, since most government offices operated at minimal capacity to conserve electricity needed to fuel the private sector economy.

Unlike manufacturers, most service producing industries were unable to recuperate their time lost.

South of the border the news is bad, too. The Commerce Department is reporting that consumers earned more and spent less in September, as the savings rate fell to its lowest level in almost two years. This pops the bubble created yesterday by the Commerce report that U.S. GDP surged at a 7.2% annual rate in the July-September period.

American personal consumption fell 0.3%, after rising by a revised 1.1% in August, the Commerce Department says. Income rose 0.3%, after a revised 0.3% gain a month earlier. Economists had expected spending to ease by 0.1% and for income to climb 0.2%.

Meanwhile, Asian stock markets closed mixed. Tokyo’s Nikkei Stock Average fell 135.97 points, or 1.27 per cent, to 10,559.59. Japanese stocks were led lower by banks, telecoms and automakers.

In Hong Kong, the blue-chip Hang Seng Index rose 46.75 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 12,190.1.

In Europe at midday, London’s FTSE 100 index is down 0.41%. Frankfurt’s DAX has dropped 0.07%. Paris’s CAC 40 has fallen 0.71%.

Among the companies reporting earnings today is Fairfax Financial. Late yesterday, FP Newspapers Income Fund reported a third-quarter profit of $1.4 million as revenue at the Winnipeg Free Press and the Brandon Sun increased 5.3 per cent to $23.9 million.

On Thursday, Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite index rose 8.93 points to 7,739.41. The TSX Venture Exchange climbed 1.21 points to 1,533.86. The Dow industrial average was up 12.08 points to 9,786.61. The Nasdaq composite lost 3.87 points to 1,932.69. The S&P 500 slid 1.17 points at 1,046.93.