Source: The Canadian Press
The Toronto stock market appeared headed for a lower open Friday as tech heavyweight Research in Motion’s shares looked to be under serious pressure following disappointing results and investor sentiment was generally soured by the delay of a decision to deal with further bailouts for cash-strapped Greece.
RIM stock (TSX:RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM) took a beating in premarket trading on the Nasdaq, falling 20% or US$5.74 to $23.80 after the BlackBerry maker reported lower second-quarter profits and revenues and failed to meet analyst expectations
RIM’s revenues fell 15% to just under US$4.2 billion from $4.6 billion while profits dropped 58% to $329 million from $797 million a year earlier.
In its financial report, the company booked a charge of $118 million to pay the cost of cutting 2,000 jobs, about 11% of its workforce. The company also sold far fewer BlackBerry smartphones and computer tablets than it expected and several analysts expressed doubts that RIM can meet its future revenue expectations.
A tumble on the TSX would come after three straight days of gains.
The loonie lost a slim 0.12 of a cent to 101.5 cents US as commodity prices were little changed.
Oil prices lost 72 cents to US$88.68 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold added 90 cents to $1,782.30 an ounce while copper prices added two cents to $3.98.
Wall Street, which has closed higher for four straight days, was headed for a retreat as Dow futures lost 64 points to 11,311, Nasdaq futures declined 7.5 points to 2,276.5 and S&P futures dropped seven points to 1107.2.
European financial officials are meeting in Poland, joined by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The group’s leader said Friday that it will not decide until next month whether Greece has qualified for its next round of bailout money.
Worries about a possible default by Greece have weighed on financial markets all summer. There are widespread concerns that that kind of financial shock might tip the global economy back into recession.
In Europe, the Paris-based CAC-40 was 0.7% lower, Germany’s DAX rose 1.1%, while the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 0.7% higher.