Equities in Canada’s main market fell hard Tuesday, mostly on late weakness of energy and telecom issues.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index tumbled 86.14 points to close Tuesday at 15,543.33
The Canadian dollar gained 0.24 cents to 73.60 cents U.S.
Energy stocks were the main culprit, as Encana Corp. subsided 30 cents, or 1.9%, to $15.14, while Enbridge faded 70 cents, or 1.3%, to $53.84.
BCE was off 46 cents at $60.71, after it said a hacker accessed customer information containing about 1.9 million active email addresses. Elsewhere among telecoms, Rogers Communications fell 83 cents, or 1.3%, to $62.10.
In the consumer discretionary field, Canadian Tire slid $3.49, or 2.2%, to $154.71, while Aimia stumbled 42 cents, or 11.7%, to $3.18.
In the tech field, BlackBerry triumphed 69 cents, or 5.3%, to $13.84, while Constellation Software gained 48 cents to $682.90.
Among materials stocks, Lundin Mining leaped 25 cents, or 3.5%, to $7.46, while First Majestic Silver hiked 14 cents, or 1.2%, to $12.16.
Gold stocks did their bit to even out the score, with Kinross Gold gaining two cents to $5.71.
On a day light on economic tidings, data showed that lending to small Canadian businesses was little changed in March compared to the month before, though borrowing by medium-sized companies jumped as they benefited from a recovery in the energy sector.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 3.18 points to 808.27
The 12 TSX subgroups were split between gainers and losers, as information technology climbed 0.8%, while materials improved 0.7%, and gold gained 0.2%
The half-dozen laggards were weighed most by energy, down 1.2%, telecoms, off 1%, and consumer discretionary stocks, down 0.8%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. equities closed mixed on Tuesday as investors continued to shrug off news coming out of Washington.
The Dow Jones Industrials Average dropped 2.19 points to finish at 20.970.69, with Microsoft leading advancers and UnitedHealth lagging.
The S&P 500 slipped 1.65 points from Monday’s all-time high to 2,400.67, with utilities leading decliners. Health-care was also among the laggards, dropping 0.4% after Pfizer's stock was downgraded to sell from neutral at Citi.
The NASDAQ added 20.2 points to Monday’s all-time high at 6,169.87. The tech-heavy index also posted a three-day winning streak and has closed higher in eight of the past 10 sessions.
Home Depot also contributed gains on the Dow after reporting first-quarter earnings of $1.67 a share on revenue of $23.89 billion.
Analysts expected a profit of $1.62 per share on sales of $23.74 billion. Home Depot's stock rose about 1.5%.
The S&P and NASDAQ managed record highs despite an array of mixed news coming out of Washington. Last week, President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and, on Monday, he defended his sharing of reportedly highly classified information with Russian officials via Twitter.
Later on Tuesday, the New York Times first reported that Israel was the ally that collected the highly-classified intelligence Trump allegedly shared.
In economic news, housing starts totaled 1.172 million in April, well below the expected 1.26 million. Meanwhile, industrial production rose 1%, more than the expected increase of 0.4%.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was higher, dropping yields to 2.33% from Monday’s 2.34%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices fell 25 cents at $48.60 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices picked up $6.80 at $1,236.80 U.S. an ounce.
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