TORONTO - The Toronto stock market could be headed for a fourth straight session of losses Friday as investors look to some U.S. data to judge the mood of the all-important American consumer. The Canadian dollar was ahead a tenth of a US cent to 96 cents US. U.S. futures were lower ahead of a report on July retail sales and the University of Michigan/Reuter survey of consumer sentiment for August. The Dow Jones industrial futures declined 23 points to 10,248, the Nasdaq futures were down 8.75 points to 1,818.5 while the S&P 500 futures slipped 3.7 points to 1,075.5. The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to report that July retail sales rose 0.5 per cent after dropping in June. U.S. retail sales are particularly important because they shine a light on the state of private consumption, a key driver of growth — U.S. consumption accounts for around 70 per cent of the world’s largest economy. "Critically, any dip into negative territory for the sales figures could be precisely the sort of news to initiate another wave of selling on Wall Street, with the impact being felt in Europe too ahead of the weekend break," said Anthony Grech, head of research at IG Index. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index is expected to come in at 72, a sharp rise from the 67.8 reading recorded in July. Stock markets are ending the week down sharply on the growing conviction the economic downturn is losing momentum. Earlier in the week, the U.S. Federal Reserve lowered its assessment of the American economic recovery. There’s also increasing evidence that China will not be able to pick up the slack from lower U.S. growth. Oil prices fell for a fourth day as evidence of slower Chinese growth in the second quarter helped push the September crude contract down a dime to US$75.64. Crude has tumbled about seven per cent this week. Copper prices also weakened with the September contract in New York off a penny to US$3.27 a pound. Gold rallied for a third day as the December contract gained $1.80 to US$1,218.50 an ounce. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average added 0.4 per cent but the Hang Seng index shed 0.2 per cent. European bourses fell despite the news that the eurozone economy grew by a quarterly rate of one per cent in the second quarter of the year. The increase was largely due to a whopping 2.2 per cent expansion in Germany. Analysts said the figures were impressive but were backward-looking. Since the second quarter of the year ended, the main concern in markets is that the global economic recovery is being threatened by a slowdown in the U.S. London's FTSE 100 index was off 0.48 per cent, Frankfurt's DAX lost 0.82 per cent while the Paris CAC 40 index was down 0.97 per cent. In earnings news, uranium miner Cameco Corp. (TSX:CCO) reported that net quarterly profits came in at $68 million, down from earnings of $247 million a year ago. Revenue fell to $546 million from $646 million a year ago at this time. Kingsway Financial Services Inc. has managed to halve its second-quarter losses to US$18.5 million. Kingsway (TSX:KFS) has spent the past year tightening and reworking its operations to focus on non-standard automobile insurance in the United States for drivers who don’t qualify for conventional insurance.

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