TORONTO - The Toronto stock market headed for a lower open Wednesday as a higher U.S. dollar helped push oil and gold prices lower while worries continue over the economic rebound. The Canadian dollar was little changed against the greenback, up 0.02 of a cent to 103.23 cents US. U.S. futures were lower following a sharp gain Tuesday in the wake of a May retail sales report that showed a less than expected decline. The Dow Jones industrial futures lost 54 points to 11,964, the Nasdaq futures were down 10.75 points to 2,236.25 and the S&P 500 futures fell back 6.2 points to 1,278.3. Oil prices fell below $99 a barrel Wednesday amid mixed signs about demand. The July crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange lost 52 cents to US$98.85 a barrel as the American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that crude inventories fell 3 million barrels last week while analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had predicted a drop of 1.9 million barrels. At the same time, inventories of gasoline rose 1.1 million barrels last week. Metal prices were unchanged with the July copper contract unchanged at US$4.15 a pound after surging 12 cents on Tuesday. Investors also took in some major acquisition activity in the mining sector. Belgium’s Nyrstar NV is making a friendly takeover bid for Canada’s Breakwater Resources Ltd. (TSX:BWR) in a deal is worth about $663 million, based on $7 per share. Toronto-based Breakwater is a mining, exploration and development company which produces and sells zinc, copper, lead and gold concentrates. Bullion prices gave back Tuesday's advance as the August gold contract fell $8.80 to US$1,515.60 an ounce. The TSX ran up 158 points Tuesday after data showed U.S. retail sales in May declined 0.2 per cent, against the 0.7 per cent slide that economists expected. Excluding autos, economists expected that sales would be flat. In fact, they rose by 0.3 per cent. The report was good news to investors who have been discouraged by a string of reports recently highlighting a deteriorating U.S. economy. But analysts doubted this one bit of good news was enough to turn around market sentiment. The Toronto market is still down almost nine per cent from the 2011 highs reached in early March. Further weighing on stocks, particularly in Europe, is the fear that Greece will end up defaulting in some shape or form on its massive debts. That would leave a swathe of banks and financial institutions in peril, and not just in Greece. Moody’s earlier warned of the exposure of French banks’ exposure to Greece. The U.S. currency advanced against the euro Wednesday after euro-zone officials meeting in Brussels on Tuesday didn't make progress on agreeing on a potential second rescue package for Greece. Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average closed up 0.3 per cent with Honda Motor Corp. gaining two per cent a day after it announced that vehicle production in Japan is expected to be back at nearly normal levels by later this month and, outside of Japan, by August or September. Japanese manufacturing was disrupted by a huge earthquake and tsunami on March 11 but analysts say the recovery at Honda and other Japanese automakers has been remarkable. Meanwhile, South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.5 per cent but other markets fell on expectations that China’s central bank will go ahead with at least one more interest rate hike this month or next to deal with high inflation, particularly surging food prices. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.7 per cent while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.9 per cent. European markets were negative with London's FTSE 100 index down 0.23 per cent, Frankfurt's DAX fell 0.45 per cent and the Paris CAC 40 declined 0.67 per cent.

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