Roundup: Canadian stock market loses ground as miners, industrials tumble
Xinhua, October 30, 2015 Adjust font size:
Canada's main stock market in Toronto fell into negative territory on Thursday as selloffs in the mining sector and industrial sector dragged down trading sentiment.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index decreased 71.28 points, or 0.51 percent, to 13,791.88 points.
The mining sector nosedived 7.51 percent as gold futures plunged sharply on Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve hinted that it would consider a rise in its interest rate in December, according to its monetary policy statement released Wednesday.
The most active gold contract for December delivery fell 28.8 U.S. dollars, or 2.45 percent, to settle at 1,147.30 dollars per ounce on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday.
Goldcorp Inc., the biggest gold miner by market value in TSX, shrank 10.17 percent to 17.32 Canadian dollars (about 13.15 U.S. dollars), while another heavyweight Eldorado Gold Corp. lost 4.53 percent to 4.85 Canadian dollars.
And traders' confidence was also hammered down when Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. dropped 2.95 percent to 27.32 Canadian dollars per share after the world's largest fertilizer company announced the third quarter earnings report, saying that it lowered its sales volume guidance.
Meanwhile, the TSX index was also weighed as Canada's biggest aircraft and railway maker Bombardier Inc. dramatically vapored 17.39 percent to 1.33 Canadian dollars, which dragged down the industrial sector by 0.92 percent.
Although the Montreal-headquartered company will get an investment valued at 1 billion Canadian dollars from the local government, investors were still concerned about its financial outlook after the company reported a net loss of 4.9 billion U.S. dollars in the third quarter on Thursday.
Other losers include financials and telecom, down 0.37 percent and 0.47 percent respectively.
However, energy bucked the trend by rising 0.58 percent when the oil prices were gaining a modest recovery from the slump in the previous days.
Info-tech was the biggest gainer by 1.12 percent when its leading company Constellation Software jumped 4.77 percent to 581.5 Canadian dollars apiece.
On the economic slate, Statistics Canada reported on Thursday that its industrial product price index declined 0.3 percent in September, mainly due to lower prices for energy and petroleum products.
On the currency front, the Canadian dollar Thursday edged up to 0.7595 U.S. dollar at 4 o'clock (the Canadian Eastern Daylight Time), when compared with 0.7580 U.S. dollar on Wednesday. Enditem