Toronto's main market stumbled Thursday as commodities tanked on data that showed China's exports growth fell in September from a month earlier. As of 1:00pm EDT, the S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 181.54 points, or 1.51%, to 11,848.42, while the more junior S&P/TSX Venture Composite fell 26.27 points, or 1.70%, to 1,516.50. China's exports were 17.1% higher in September than in the same month a year earlier, but down from a 24.5% year-over-year gain in August. Data also showed that import growth fell. Any indication of a slowdown in growth in China rattles investors, and the Toronto market is especially reflective of this, as it is weighted heavily towards resource and commodity stocks. Crude oil futures fell over 2.2%, or $1.91, to $83.66 per barrel, while gold futures dropped 1.26%, or $21.20, to $1,661.40 an ounce. Silver contract prices shed 3.76% to $31.56 an ounce, while base metal copper dropped 2.5% to $3.31 per pound. In Toronto, metals and mining stocks and utilities suffered the most, with losses of over 3% and 2%, respectively, while the energy and financials sectors followed, both dropping near 2%. Mercator Minerals (TSE:ML) and First Quantum Minerals (TSE:FM) both lost around 4.8%, while Cline Mining (TSE:CMK) fell 3.3%. Copper-focused Teck Resources (TSE:TCK.B) and Lundin Mining (TSE:LUN) declined nearly 3% and over 5%, respectively. In the energy sector, heavyweight Suncor Energy (TSE:SU) shed more than 2%, while TransGlobe Energy (TSE:TGL) dropped almost 4%. In the gold arena, Kinross Gold (TSE:K) shares in Toronto retreated over 1%, while shares of Barrick Gold (TSE:ABX) and Goldcorp (TSE:G) fell closer to 2% on the declining price of the yellow metal. Financials were weak, with Royal Bank (TSE:RB) down around 1.7% in early afternoon, and Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSE:TD) down over 1.3%. In corporate news, Research In Motion (TSE:RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM) shares were down more than 2%, despite announcing that the service outages that began Monday over its global BlackBerry network are now over. The downtime marked the longest in the company's history. Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said users might still experience some delay in emails due to backlog, and apologized to customers earlier this morning. Auto parts maker Magna International (TSE:MG)(NYSE:MGA) said Thursday it was co-operating with a US Department of Justice (DOJ) anti-trust investigation of the automobile tooling industry. Magna said that the US government body had requested documents related to various tooling bids, including a tooling program for which a subsidiary within its Cosma International operating unit acted as tier 1 tooling supplier. Cosma International makes up 20-25% of Magna's total sales. Earlier this year, fellow parts makers TRW Automotive (NYSE:TRW) and Sweden-headquartered Autoliv (NYSE:ALV) announced they were also being probed by the DOJ. Shares of Magna stumbled more than 5.8% Thursday. On the economic front, Statistics Canada said that the country's trade deficit widened from $539 million in July to $622 million in August, with both imports and exports expanding. US/Europe US equities were weak Thursday, with the Dow dropping 0.6% in the early afternoon, as financials dragged stocks after JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JCP) reported third quarter profit fell 4% after a loss in the firm's private equity unit and weak investment banking results weighed. Shares of Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Citigroup (NYSE:C) were over 5% lower, while Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) was down over 3%. All are due to report quarterly results next week. First-time filings for unemployment benefits fell 1,000 to 404,000, better than the 406,000 initial jobless claims expected by economists. In Europe, markets ended lower, with the FTSE 100 closing down 0.71% and the DAX ending 1.33% in the red, as Slovakia became the last eurozone member to ratify the enhanced European bailout fund after voting the measure down earlier in the week.

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