RTTN: Canadian Stocks Slump On Global Economic Worries
(RTTNews) - Toronto stocks fell sharply in mid-morning deals Friday amid disappointing jobs data from south of the border and falling commodities prices. Also, fresh worries over the euro zone debt situation weighed on sentiment. A spokesman for Hungarian Prime Minister was quoted as saying the nation's economy is in a "grave situation".
The S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 86.41 points or 0.73% to 11,725.46, surrendering most of the gains made this week.
The price of crude oil moved down after disappointing U.S. jobs data, with crude for July shedding $1.18 to $73.43 a barrel.
Among energy plays, Suncor Energy (SU.TO) lost 1.06% and Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO) slipped 1.79%.
In the financial space, Canadian Western Bank (CWB.TO) and Scotiabank (BNS.TO) were down over 1% each.
In the base metals space, Ivanhoe Mines (IVN.TO) was down 2.76%. Quadra FNX Mining (QUX.TO) shed 3.65%.
The price of gold moved down for a third session, amid a recovering dollar. Gold for August was down $5.8 to $1,204.20 an ounce.
Barrick Gold (ABX.TO) trimmed 1.43% and Red Back Mining (RBI.TO) moved down 0.99%.
Entrée Gold (ETG.TO) eased 0.48%. The company said it's shareholders voted in favor of acquiring all of the issued shares and options of PacMag according to Australian Schemes of arrangement. As per the deal, each PacMag shareholder will receive about 0.102 Entree shares and C$0.041 in cash.
Air Canada (AC_B.TO) edged down 0.55% even after it said its system traffic increased 9.7% to 4.2 billion revenue passenger miles in May from a year-ago period. Capacity increased 6.4% to 5.2 billion available seat miles system wide.
Engineering and manufacturing company Reko International Group (REK.TO) plummeted 25%. The company slipped into the red, reporting third-quarter net loss of $0.36 per share, compared with a net income of $0.05 per share in the same quarter last year.
In economic news, Statistics Canada said the country added 25,000 jobs in May, recording fifth consecutive monthly increase. Economists were expecting 20,000 jobs creations in May. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.1% in May, as against economists' expectations for 8%.
Meanwhile, building permits increased 5.4% to C$6.7 billion in April, mainly on gains in the non-residential sector, Statistics Canada said Friday morning. This follows a 12.3% advance in March. Consensus were pointing to a decline of 2% in April. On year-over-year basis, value of building permits jumped 48.2%.
