Roundup: Canadian stocks end lower over retail sales data, slipping oil

Canada's main stock market in Toronto retreated Friday led by resource and financial companies over falling crude oil prices while retail sales data in Canada showed signs of slowing consumer demand.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index went down 117.96 points, or 0.91 percent, to close at 12,813.40 points. Six of the TSX index's eight main sub-sectors turned negative.

U.S. oil futures dropped 1.13 U.S. dollars to settle at 29.64 a barrel, partially reversing the rally of the past few days. Oil prices fell after the U.S. released data showing record inventories of crude oil in storage.

Statistics Canada reported that retail sales figures for the month of December fell 2.2 percent from a month earlier, well below forecasts of a 0.9 percent drop. With consumer spending responsible for two-thirds of economic activity, it raised concerns that growth might falter.

Declines were widespread as lower sales were reported in 10 of 11 sub-sectors, representing 97 percent of retail trade. The agency reported that later snowfalls and unseasonably warm weather in many parts of Canada may have contributed to lower seasonal purchases.

U.S inflation also came in higher than expected. Last week at this time the market was pricing a 25 percent chance of a rate hike by year-end and now it's over 40 percent and that's largely because of Friday's stronger than expected CPI, economists said.

Still, market watchers say the TSX index remained on track for a roughly 3 percent gain on the holiday-shortened week, helped by oil's first weekly price gains this month as producers talk of a coordinated plan to freeze output levels.

By Friday closing, TSX energy stocks listed lower by 1.67 percent, including Encana Corporation, which lost 10.93 percent to 4.32 Canadian dollars a share, and Canadian Natural Resources, which fell 3.50 percent to 28.09 Canadian dollars a share.

Calgary-based pipeliner Enbridge Inc. fell 2.07 percent to 43.14 Canadian dollars per share, despite reporting higher-than-expected profit.

Heavyweight financial stocks went down 0.49 percent as a group, led by Manulife Financial Corporation with a decline of 2.50 percent and Toronto-Dominion Bank with a loss of 0.34 percent.

Crashing crude prices also expected to hit Canada's banks as earnings loom between Feb. 23 and March 1, when each of Canada's big banks will report fiscal first-quarter results.

Investors will want to see whether further deterioration in oil prices caused loan losses to rise materially in the banks' loan books. The last time the banks reported results (for the quarter that ended on Oct. 31), the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil averaged 44.94 U.S. dollars per barrel. This time, they will report results for the three months ended on Jan. 31, a period when WTI averaged 37.43 U.S. dollars.

A couple of the banks noted elevated loan losses in their oil and gas books in the fourth-quarter results. It would be a big surprise if that trend doesn't deepen and extend itself this time. The question is how material it will be to earnings per share growth.

"This quarter, we expect to see rising commercial oil and gas loan impairments," wrote Gabriel Dechaine, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity, in a note to clients. Dechaine has "Buy" ratings on Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia and Toronto-Dominion Bank. He has "Hold" ratings on the rest.

At Barclays, analyst John Aiken also sees it that way, telling clients Wednesday that "rising provisions in 2016 are becoming harder to deny." Aiken doesn't have a single "Buy" rating among the banks right now, and has recently trimmed price targets on every Canadian bank stock.

The Canadian dollar traded slightly lower at 0.7263 U.S. dollar, compared with Thursday's closing rate of 0.7273 U.S. dollar. Enditem