Bay Street stocks ended the week on a downward note Friday, surrendering some of a recent rally.
Gold stocks led the decline as the precious metal has cooled away from its record levels.
Minutes before Friday’s closing bell, the S&P TSX Composite index, which has been on a tear this week, was down 49.74 points to 11,434.77, after consecutive triple-digit gains.
Gold stocks were down, as Paramount Gold and Silver Corp. declined 5.6% to $1.35 after the company announced the pricing of its public offering of 16 million shares of its common stock at $1.25 U.S. apiece.
Materials also slipped, as Potash lost 3.9% to $94.10 after the stock was initiated at "sell" by Dahlman Rose.
In other corporate news, DragonWave surged 18.3% to $10.93 after the company reported second quarter net income of $6.3 million or $0.21 per share, compared to a loss of $1.7 million or $0.06 per share in the year-ago quarter.
Clarke dropped 8.8% to $3.32 after the Nova Scotia Securities Commission approved a settlement agreement between the company and staff of the Commission.
MDS dropped 0.8% to $9.08 after the company said it agreed to sell its Central Labs operation to Czura Thornton for around $8 million.
Meanwhile, Dollarama gained 5.3% to $19.43 on its first day of trading following its initial public offering of common stock. The company announced that it will offer 17.14 million common shares at $17.50 per share.
On the economic front, Canadian employers added jobs for the second straight month in September, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell, adding to evidence the U.S.’s largest trading partner is emerging from its recession.
Employment rose by 30,600 in September, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa. The jobless rate fell to 8.4% from August’s 8.7%. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a gain of 5,000 jobs and unemployment at 8.8%.
The report may increase pressure on the Bank of Canada, with its benchmark rate at a record low, to follow Australia into raising borrowing costs. The central bank lowered its benchmark lending rate to 0.25% this year and pledged to keep it there until June 2010 unless the inflation outlook changes materially.
The Canadian dollar gained 0.85 cents to 95.77 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
Of the 14 TSX subgroups, 10 were negative Friday. Gold and global base metals had the biggest losses, 1.6%, while materials were off 1.2%.
The four gainers were led by health-care stocks, up 0.5%, while industrials picked up 0.4% and metals and mining issues nipped ahead 0.2%.
The TSX Venture Exchange moved forward 0.22 points to 1,306.40, while the Nasdaq Canada index gained 2.08 points to 729.41.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks rallied Friday afternoon, with the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 flirting with fresh 2009 highs as investors mulled a surprise drop in the trade gap and a stronger dollar.
The Dow Jones Industrials stepped ahead 78.07 points to end the week at 9,864.94. The S&P 500 index picked up 6.01 points to 1,071.49 The Nasdaq composite index added 15.35 points to 2,139.28, the highest levels in more than a year for all three gauges.
Wall Street briefly topped 2009 closing highs during the session Thursday, before closing just modestly higher. Thursday's run was fueled by Alcoa's better-than-expected profit report, a bigger-than-expected drop in jobless claims and the first rise in monthly retail sales figures in a year.
This week has brought a burst of upbeat news on the economic and global front, helping to cool worries that the market has gotten too far ahead of a recovery. Such concerns led the end of the third-quarter selloff.
Friday is also the two-year anniversary of the Dow and S&P 500 closing at all-time highs. And 24 tumultuous months later, both averages are still more than 30% below those highs.
Economically speaking, the U.S. trade deficit narrowed in August to $30.71 billion U.S., which was a bit less than expected. A consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a deficit of $31 billion U.S. The deficit for July was revised slightly downward to $31.85 billion U.S.
Treasury prices plunged, raising the yields for the benchmark 10-year note to 3.38%.
The price of a barrel of oil regained eight cents to $72.28 U.S.
Gold prices tailed off eight dollars to $1,049 U.S. an ounce.
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