The Toronto stock market appeared set for a slightly higher open Tuesday as oil prices advanced and traders took another mass downgrade of the credit worthiness of European countries in stride.
The Canadian dollar advanced, up 0.09 of a cent to 100.16 cents US.
U.S. futures were weak as the Dow Jones industrial futures dipped four points to 12,831, the Nasdaq futures edged up one point to 2,568.75 and the S&P 500 futures slipped 0.3 of a point to 1,348.8.
Moody’s slapped credit downgrades on six European Union countries, including Italy and Spain because of the increasingly weak economic outlook in Europe. The agency also cautioned that top-rated Britain, France and Austria could see their ratings cut.
However, analysts pointed out that the impact was fairly negligible given that Moody’s was just echoing decisions made last month by its rivals Standard & Poor’s and Fitch.
Commodity prices were mixed amid strong economic data from Europe’s biggest economy with the March crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange up 31 cents to US$101.22 a barrel.
Metal prices weakened for a third day with copper down three cents to US$3.80 a pound.
Gold declined $8.10 to US$1,716.80 an ounce.
Germany’s ZEW institute said its index of investor optimism is up sharply due to better U.S. economic data and steady progress in working out a new bailout for Greece.
The reading for February hit 5.4 points, up 27 points from minus 21.6 from the month before.
The institute said Tuesday the reading means that a recent slowdown in Germany isn’t likely to last.
Meanwhile, traders remained confident that Greece would get its second bailout despite signs that the eurozone countries, led by Germany, aren’t quite ready to back the release of funds to the cash-strapped euro country.
They are looking ahead to Wednesday’s meeting of euro finance ministers in Brussels, where an agreement in principle to give Greece the money is at least is expected.
On Sunday, Greece’s parliament approved sharp cuts in civil service jobs, welfare and the minimum wage, required by international leaders for a €130 billion bailout that the country needs to avoid defaulting on its debt next month.
European markets were mixed with London’s FTSE 100 index down 0.05%, Frankfurt’s DAX gained 0.22% and the Paris CAC 40 edged up 0.04%.
Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.2%, South Korea’s Kospi was 0.2% lower while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost one per cent.
Mainland Chinese shares edged lower with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 0.3%.
On the corporate front, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. said that its Horizon oilsands mine won’t return to full production until mid-to-late March. Output has been suspended since Feb. 5 as the energy giant made repairs to its upgrader, which processes thick, sticky bitumen from the oilsands into a type of crude refineries can handle.
The outage has caused Canadian Natural to lower its 2012 Horizon output targets to between 93,000 and 103,000 barrels per day of synthetic crude oil from 105,000 to 115,000 barrels per day.