By James Langton
(September 15 – 13:00 ET) –
Markets woke to some positive
inflation news in the U.S. this
morning. The much-dreaded Consumer
Price Index came in on target for
the headline number. And ex-food
and energy prices were lower than
expected. While there was a
positive market reaction
initially, markets have since
sobered up and allowed the bearish
tone to return.
The TSE 300 index is off by 53
points so far. Volume is on the
light side at 48 million shares,
and the mood is definitely
negative. Decliners are outweighing
advancers about 18:13 on the TSE.
Volume is 3:2 in favour of sellers.
Every sector on the TSE is down,
led by the miners, golds and
industrial products. Specifically,
the tech equipment makers,
integrated mines and energy
stocks are selling well. There’s
virtually nothing fighting the
trade for the bulls.
Ranger Oil is an
unusually heavy trader this
morning, down 35¢, to $6.65 on
volume of 3.2 million shares.
BCE and Nortel
are following a down move in U.S.
techs. The leading losers among
the financials are insurers
FairFax and E-L Financial,
and Merrill Lynch. Still,
the volume is light. Media stocks
Shaw and Rogers are
both selling pretty strongly.
On the upside, Magna is
one of the few winners today, along
with miner-turned-online travel
agent Travelbuys.com.
Montreal is enjoying its own
broad selloff at midday. The ME is
down more than 25 points so far.
The small caps are the only bright
spots. Alberta is up nine points.
Vancouver is up just over one.
In New York, the Dow embraced
the good CPI numbers for about
five minutes, then gave up its
optimism. The negative bond market
is keeping everyone subdued.
Traders can’t seem to shake the
feeling that interest rates are
going up another 25 points before
yearend. The Dow is virtually
unchanged, up eight, at midday.
Nasdaq is down 21 points. The S&P
is off a couple of points of its
own.