North American markets opened lower and stayed that way throughout the morning as oil prices continued to weigh heavily on investors’ outlook.

At midday, Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite index was down 43.27 points or 0.51% at 8420.87. The TSX Venture Exchange edged 6.82 points or 0.45% lower to 1504.72.

On Wall Street, the Dow industrial average was down 30.32 points or 0.3% at 10089.92. The Nasdaq dropped 10.53 or 0.57% to 1848.89 while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 4.83 or 0.44% to 1094.86.

The Canadian dollar fell back slightly after pushing past the US76¢ mark. At noon it was off 0.02 of a cent from Tuesday’s close to US75.91¢.

The price of crude oil was down US60¢ at US$43.55 a barrel after hitting a record high of US$44.28 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices have hit record highs four days in a row on the Mercantile. The surge in crude prices has a wide-ranging effect, hurting consumers, who could pay more at gas pumps. It also cuts into profits at most companies, particularly those in the manufacturing and transport sectors.

The state of the industry has investors wondering about instability of supplies from Iraq and Russia and the realization that OPEC is running full-tilt and unable to crank up production enough to have an effect on prices.

In the meantime, the preoccupation with oil overshadowed a couple of positive economic reports from the U.S. that suggested that June’s economic “soft spot” may not have lasted.

The U.S. Commerce Department reported that orders placed with U.S. factories rose by a solid 0.7% in June from the previous month. The performance exceeded economists’ expectations for a 0.5% advance. The increase, the largest since March, was up from a 0.4% rise in May. In addition, the Institute for Supply Management’s survey of the non-manufacturing sector showed expansion at an even higher level than thought. The index rose to 64.8 in July from 59.9 the previous month. Economists had expected the index would rise to 61.5.

In Toronto, all TSX sub-sectors were in the red. Leading the way was the tech sector, which was off 1.37%. Investors also appeared to be taking profits in energy as the TSX sub-sector fell 0.72%. Gold stocks were off 1.22% and financial were down 0.02%.

Meanwhile, earnings reports have slowed in the U.S. but there is still plenty of Canadian earnings news.

BCE Inc., the communications and media giant whose holdings include Bell Canada, says its second-quarter profit jumped 19.5% to $571 million as revenue rose 2.3%. Its shares dipped 5¢ to $27.89. Shares in drugmaker Biovail Corp. were up 43¢ to $21.24 as the firm swung to a second-quarter profit of US$44.2 million, from a year-ago loss of US$5 million. Product sales reached a record US$197.2 million, up 25%.


Overseas, Tokyo’s Nikkei Stock Average of 225 issues lost 130.55 points, or 1.17%, finishing at 11,010.02.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index shed 76.86 points, or 0.62%, to 12,280.26.

London’s FTSE 100 index was down 24.6 points at 4,405.1.

Frankfurt’s DAX 30 lost 1.5% while the Paris CAC 40 dipped 1.26%.