A man walks past an old Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) sign in Toronto, June 23, 2014.Mark Blinch/Reuters
The S&P/TSX composite index was well off the highs of the morning as energy stocks turned negative, down 18.96 points to 14,770.82 amid major corporate moves.
Shares in Quebecor rose 14 cents to $28.78 as Desjardins Securities upgraded the stock to a "buy" with a price target of $29 after the company announced a deal to sell Sun Media Corp.'s English-language operations to Postmedia Network Canada Corp. for $316-million. The deal includes 175 newspapers and publications, including the Sun chain of daily newspapers. Postmedia shares jumped 25 cents to $2.50.
And in the tech sector, Hewlett-Packard is splitting itself into two companies. One will focus on its personal computer and printer business and another on technology services, such as data storage, servers and software. HP shares were up 5.2 per cent to $37.03 (U.S.) in New York.
The Canadian dollar rose 0.56 of a cent to 89.38 cents (U.S.) as the greenback weakened.
U.S. markets also fell into negative territory while investors look to the start this week of a flood of third-quarter earnings reports in the U.S., including resource giant Alcoa and food companies PepsiCo and Yum Brands.
The Dow Jones industrials fell 29.75 points to 16,979.94, the Nasdaq dropped 16.08 points to 4,459.54 and the S&P 500 index slipped 3.18 of a cent to 1,964.72.
Traders were cautious about earnings amid expectations for a slowing pace in earnings growth and worries about how a much stronger U.S. dollar has impacted earnings.
"There's no question that a higher U.S. dollar in terms of reported earnings, will have meaningful impact," said Craig Fehr, Canadian markets specialist at Edward Jones in St. Louis.
"Earnings will continue to go up, but not nearly at the pace we have seen over the past couple of years. So to the extent that we see any disappointment in earnings, particularly from some of the big bellwether, multinational firms, I think that will serve as another catalyst for volatility."
The U.S. dollar has strengthened considerably over the last few weeks with the U.S. dollar index at a four-year high. A major reason for the stronger greenback has been a euro which has weakened against a backdrop of practically non-existent inflation, weak economic data and a vow from the European Central Bank to take action to get the eurozone out of a deep funk, including driving interest rates to near zero.
TSX advancers were led by a 0.7 per cent rise in financials while telecoms were ahead 0.8 per cent.
The gold sector edged up 0.4 per cent as December gold gained $8.90 to $1,201.80 (U.S.) an ounce.
The TSX base metals component was slightly higher while December copper was four cents higher to $3.03 a pound.
The energy sector was off 0.2 per cent with November crude in New York down six cents to $89.68 a barrel.
In other corporate developments, Air Canada flights had fewer empty seats last month as the airline reported a load factor of 84.7 per cent for September, up from 83.2 per cent a year ago. Air Canada also said it has reached a tentative agreement with the union representing its pilots for a new 10-year contract and its shares ran ahead 30 cents to $8.17 (Canadian).