Apple closed the trading day with a value of over $700-billion, the first time any U.S. company has reached that mark.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The Toronto stock market was flat Wednesday as traders look to an emergency meeting of euro zone finance ministers who will discuss the Greek government's demand for debt relief.
The S&P/TSX composite index lost 7.96 points, or 0.05 per cent, to 15,104.56. The Canadian dollar was down 0.29 of a cent to 79.24 cents (U.S.).
U.S. indexes were mixed as the Dow Jones industrials dropped 43.67 points to 17,825.09, the Nasdaq edged up 1.96 points to 4,789.6 and the S&P 500 index rose 2.53 points to 2,066.06.
Shares of Apple Inc. climbed 1.61 per cent to $123.43 (U.S.), a day after hitting a valuation of $710.7-billion, marking the first time a U.S. company has reached that milestone. The iPhone maker is now more than twice as valuable as longtime rival Microsoft Corp. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's next-biggest company, has a market capitalization of $385.4-billion.
The meeting of euro zone finance ministers will be the group's first opportunity to hear directly from the new left-wing anti-austerity Greek government. Greece wants to renegotiate the terms of its international bailout ahead of the expiration of the current agreement in late February.
Speculation that Greece could be granted extra time to hold new negotiations lifted markets Tuesday but German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has poured cold water on that scenario. He told reporters at the Group of 20 meeting in Istanbul that such speculation was the stuff of fantasy.
"The most likely scenario still involves some sort of compromise on the part of Greece and its European creditors though it is still uncertain what shape that will take," said BMO Capital Markets senior economist Carl Campus.
"In the meantime, what we can expect is more volatility."
TSX advancers were led by the consumer staples sector, up 1.14 per cent.
The gold sector climbed one per cent as traders avoided risk and bought into gold with the April contract in New York gained $2.40 to $1,234.60 an ounce.
Kinross Gold fell 16 cents to $3.91 (Canadian) as the miner reported a $1.47-billion loss in the most recent quarter. Kinross took impairment charges and writedowns of more than $1-billion, around half related to a decision to not go ahead with a $1.6-billion expansion of its Tasiast mine in Africa's northwest because of weak gold prices.
The adjusted loss was $6-million, or one cent a share, missing forecasts of a profit of 1.2 cents.
The energy sector was the biggest decliner, down 1.3 per cent. Oil fell 61 cents to $49.41 a barrel on top of a tumble of almost $3 on Tuesday as traders speculate whether oil prices hit a recent bottom around $44 a barrel. Oil prices have hit six-year lows, down 50 per cent from the highs of last summer amid a huge supply/demand imbalance on global markets.
However, there is little evidence that global oil production levels have shown any decline. In fact, data from last week showed U.S. inventories at 80-year highs.
The latest data from the U.S. Department of Energy comes out later in the morning and analysts expect that supplies increased by another four million barrels last week.
March copper added one cent to $2.56 a pound and the base metals sector dipped 0.25 per cent.
The industrials sector also lagged, down 0.8 per cent as Air Canada posted a quarterly net loss of $100-million (Canadian) or 35 cents a share. Adjusted earnings came in at 23 cents a share, a penny short of estimates. Revenue improved 7.2 per cent to $3.1-billion but its shares fell $1.18 or 8.9 per cent to $12.07.
With files from Bloomberg