Roundup: Canadian stock market flat amid mixed banks profit reports

Canada's stock market in Toronto Thursday closed flat as mixed quarterly profit reports of Canada's biggest banks weighed on the trading sentiment.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 3.47 points, or 0.02 percent to 15,107.00 points, with most of the influential sectors little changed.

The market waned modestly in early trade when three of the country's biggest banks posted mixed earnings performances on Thursday.

The financial sector slipped 0.12 percent on the closing bell, when Royal Bank of Canada added 0.14 percent to 80.05 Canadian dollars (about 64.38 U.S. dollars) after the country's biggest lender reported that its net income for the second quarter ended April 30 was 2.5 billion Canadian dollars, or 1.68 Canadian dollars a share, compared with 2.2 billion Canadian dollars, or 1. 47 Canadian dollars a share, a year ago.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was also higher 0.64 percent after reporting more-than-tripled quarterly profit, with the net income attributable to common shareholders up to 895 million Canadian dollars, or 2.25 Canadian dollars per share, in the second quarter ended April 30.

By contrast, Toronto Dominion Bank tumbled 1.09 percent to 55. 37 Canadian dollars after it the second biggest bank said that its net income was 1.86 billion Canadian dollars, or 0.97 Canadian dollar a share, for the second quarter ended April 30, compared with 1.99 billion Canadian dollars, or 1.04 Canadian dollars a share, a year ago.

Besides, a slate of economic data released by Statistics Canada Thursday showed that Canadian corporations earned 75.4 billion Canadian dollars in operating profits in the first quarter, down 6. 0 percent from the previous quarter, and in the financial sector, operating profits fell 0.2 percent to 19.7 billion Canadian dollars, among which insurance carriers' profits fell by 933 million Canadian dollars in the first quarter.

"Profits are likely to be weak in the second quarter as well as the knock-on effects of lower energy sector profits hit other industries. Weakness in corporate profits is expected to weigh on business investment through much of 2015," Leslie Preston, an economist from TD Bank, said in a report Thursday.

The federal agency also reported that the Industrial Product Price Index declined 0.9 percent in April, mainly because of lower prices for energy and petroleum products.

In response, the industrial sector dropped 1.51 percent, leading the decline when the railway giants lost ground. Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. dived 4.12 percent to 208.80 Canadian dollars and Canadian National Railway Company also shrank 1.71 percent to 73.95 Canadian dollars per share.

Resources sectors were also in the negative territory with energy down 0.06 percent and metals and mining lower 0.45 percent.

Other gainers included telecom and utilities, up 0.19 percent and 0.75 percent, respectively.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar Thursday moved higher to 0.8042 U.S. dollar, compared with 0.8026 U.S. dollar on Wednesday. Endite