Canada’s main stock market in Toronto opened the week with a triple-digit loss, as tumbling crude oil and natural gas prices contributed to a sharp decline in energy stocks.
The Toronto Stock Exchange’s benchmark Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite dropped 107.10 points, or 0.69 percent, to finish the session at 15,388.95 points. Eight of the ten sub-sectors finished the day in the negative.
The TSX Energy had the largest influence, slipping 2.47 percent after Iraq reported an increase of 103,000 barrels in crude oil output in December in their southern ports to a record-3.51 million barrels a day.
The increase took the market by surprise, as the supply cut agreed to by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in November expected Iraq to cut 210,000 barrels a day by January.
Despite the increase in production levels, the country’ s oil minister still expects his nation to honour the OPEC agreement. The market was not as optimistic, as the price of Brent had its largest single-day decline in two months, falling 3.42 percent to 54.86 U.S. dollars a barrel for March delivery.
Meanwhile, February natural gas on New York Mercantile Exchange fell 5.11 percent to 3.117 U.S. dollars per million British thermal units.
Shares of Calgary-based energy firms MEG Energy and Baytex Energy Corp. dipped 5.89 percent and 4.91 percent, respectively.
Other groups that lost ground on the day were: Industrials (0.83 percent), Telecommunications (0.82 percent), Financials (0.52 percent), Consumer Discretionary (0.51 percent), Utilities (0.32 percent), Materials (0.22 percent), and Information Technology (0.02 percent).
Financials fell as Toronto-Dominion Bank and Manulife Financial shares retreated 0.46 percent to 67.04 Canadian dollars (50.68 U.S. dollars) and 0.37 percent to 24.25 Canadian dollars (18.33 U.S. dollars), respectively.
Also making news within the group was Toronto-based private equity firm, ONEX Corporation, close to acquiring Ferrara Candy Co, an Illinois-based candy maker. Speculation of the potential 1.3 billion U.S. dollar deal lifted ONEX’ s stock up 0.15 percent to 88.93 Canadian dollars (67.22 U.S. dollars) a share.
The Materials group, which is consists of producers of gold, precious metals, and raw materials, saw a slight decline, as gold and silver recovered from Friday’ s losses. The spot price for an ounce of gold rose 0.73 percent to 1,180.80 U.S. dollars, while the same weight of silver moved up 0.61 percent to 16.54 U.S. dollars.
Gold miners were the most actively traded on the day, with four of the top five stocks belonging to the group. Vancouver-based B2Gold Corp. topped the list with over 8.2 million shares exchanged and a 0.28 percent increase to 3.57 Canadian dollars (2.70 U.S. dollars) a share.
Toronto-based Yamana Gold Inc. and IAMGOLD Corporation were also in the top five by volume, with respective rises of 2.95 percent and 2.56 percent.
On the bright side, Health Care and Consumer Staples groups moved up on the day, with respective gains of 1.14 percent and 0.28 percent.
The Canadian dollar ticked up 0.03 cents to begin the week at 0.7559 U.S. dollars. Enditem.
Source: Xinhua/NewsGhana.com.gh
