By James Langton
(September 19 – 09:00 ET) – Manufacturers’ shipments fell 1.3% to $44.3 billion in July, led by declines in the motor vehicle and machinery industries. Economists were expecting a slight increase in the number. Statistics Canada says the strong upward trend since the second half of 1998 has slowed down since the beginning of this year. Both unfilled orders and inventories increased in July. Industrial capacity utilization increased in the second quarter to 88.4%.
In the U.S. August housing starts came in up 0.3% to a 1.531 million annual rate, the first increase in four months led by a rebound in starts of single-family homes. Analysts were calling for a 1.3% rebound.
In Europe stocks are weak once again today, with the euro continuing its slide against the dollar. The FTSE is down 19 points to 6,391. The CAC 40 is off 20 points to 6,502 and the DAX is down five to 6,886.
The big news in Euroland is that the AOL and Time Warner appears to be on the verge of rejection by the European Commission, unless the companies give rivals better access to music distribution via the Internet.
U.S. stocks including Nortel, Cisco and Intel are up in premarket trading though, pointing to an up open on this side of the pond.
Stocks rebounded in Asia, too. The Nikkei added 63 points to close at 16,124. The Hang Seng finished up 117 to 15,677.
In other business news, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. strong prices and sales will push third-quarter earnings beyond analyst expectations. It is now expecting to earn 70¢ a share in the third quarter, it was expected to earn 41¢.
Talisman Energy Inc. today announced the purchase of the Central Foothills Gas Gathering and the Columbia Minehead Gas Gathering systems from TransCanada PipeLines Limited.
Corel Corporation announced it has entered into a share purchase agreement with an institutional investor. Corel may issue and sell to the investor up to 14,690,000 shares in periodic draw down periods over 24 months, if all associated warrants are exercised.