Roger Biduk; Nortel Sinks Bay Street

Roger Biduk writes:

Stocks on Bay Street traded deep in the red Wednesday afternoon in a broad-based selloff as a surprisingly weak US retail sales report and news that Nortel Networks filed for bankruptcy protection weighed on sentiment.
The S&P/TSX composite index was down 258.91 points to 8,702.64. Meanwhile, the TSX Venture Exchange was 18.07 points lower at 850.83 and the NASDAQ Canada was off 10.45 points at 463.50.
The CDN$ was trading down 0.98 cent to 80.64 cents US.

In earnings news, Canwest Global Communications Corp. (CGS) reported a loss of $33 million for its fiscal first quarter on Wednesday, citing a deteriorating economy, low advertising revenue and accounting issues related to some of its specialty television channels. The loss amounts to 18 cents per share and reverses year-earlier earnings of $41 million or 23 cents per share.
Corus Entertainment Inc. (CJR.B) said Wednesday it was reducing its 2009 earnings guidance despite recording profits in its first fiscal quarter. The Toronto-based media company reported earnings of $40.6 million, or 50 cents a share, up slightly from year-earlier earnings of $39.4 million or 46 cents a share.
Cogeco Inc. (CGO) reported a profit of $11.1 million or 66 cents a share, reversing year-earlier losses of $10 million or 60 cents a share. The company says revenue rose 18.5 percent to $308.4 million from $260.3 million.

On the corporate front, Nortel Networks Corp. (NT) filed for bankruptcy protection. Toronto-based Nortel said today that the company and its various subsidiaries would seek protection from creditors with filings in Canada, the United States and Europe. The move comes in advance of an interest payment Nortel was scheduled to make this week of about US$107 million.

Roger Biduk writes:
In economic news, the Census Bureau said Wednesday that retail sales for December declined 2.7 percent, vs. an expected decline of 1.2 percent. Factoring out autos, retail sales declined 3.1 percent, vs. a 2.5 percent decline in the prior month and the expectation for a 1.4 percent decline. The Mortgage Bankers Association said early Wednesday that the market composite index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume increased 15.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis to 1324.8 for the week ended Jan. 9. On an unadjusted basis, the index increased 95.7 percent compared with the previous week and 52.4 percent from a month prior.

All of the TSX sub-groups traded lower this afternoon.
Mining stocks were off 8.31 percent, industrial issues were down 3.77 percent and energy stocks shed 3.54 percent.
Gold was rising $1.10 to $821.80 US an ounce.
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