Commodity-linked stocks led Toronto's main index notably lower on Friday. Gold stocks saw the most notable losses as the precious metal dropped well below the $1,200 U.S. mark.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index went south 125.75 points, or 1.1%, to end the week at 11,510.80.
Gold and materials stocks both lost momentum. Barrick Gold plunged 8.5% to $45.21 after an appeals court overturned a decision regarding a Cortez mine in Nevada. The stock was also downgraded to "market weight" from "overweight" at Thomas Weisel.
Mining stocks were down, as HudBay dropped 2.7% to $14.19, Inmet declined 3.4% to $62.31 and First Quantum was down 2.3% to $81.09.
Technology stocks gained after Marvell Technology Group reported third-quarter earnings that beat the expectations of analysts. Research in Motion added 1.1% to $62.21 to lead the way.
Royal Bank of Canada shed 2.6% to $55.99 despite reporting its fourth-quarter net income was $1.24 billion, compared to $1.12 billion in the same quarter last year.
CIBC gained 1% to $70.97 after being upgraded to "neutral" from "underperform" at Credit Suisse.
TSO3 surged 15.5% to $1.64 after the company announced that the company has received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to expand the intended use claims for its TSO3 STERIZONE 125L Sterilizer.
Canada's economy unexpectedly added 79,000 jobs last month, bringing November’s unemployment rate down 0.1 percentage points to 8.5%, according to data released Friday by Statistics Canada.
The Canadian dollar slipped 0.22 cents to 94.57 cents U.S.
ON BAYSTREET
The 14 TSX subgroups were evenly split between winners and losers. Gold weighed things downward by losing 5.2%, materials were down 4.3% and metals and mining stocks were off 2.2%.
The gainers were hoisted up by information technology, 2% higher, followed by industrials, ahead 1.4% and consumer discretionaries, gaining 0.9%.
The TSX Venture Exchange skidded 11.15 to 1,450.46, while the Nasdaq Canada index was up 1.05 points to 659.73.
ON WALLSTREET
In New York, stocks struggled Friday, as investors welcomed a better-than-expected November jobs report but showed reluctance after pushing the major gauges to fresh 14-month highs.
The Dow Jones Industrials finished in the green by 22.75 points to 10,388.90, after triple-digit gains early in the session, while the S&P 500 was up 6.06 points to 1,105.98, the Nasdaq finished the day ahead 21.21 points to 2,194.35.
Stocks had rallied across the board in the first two hours after the announcement, leaving the Dow and S&P 500 at fresh 14-month highs and the Nasdaq just short of one. But the new highs caused some investors to step back.
The jobs report "blew us away," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors. "It confirms that the recession ended in the middle of the year and that we are moving ahead, even with some choppiness."
However, he said that while the labour market is healing, it still has a long way to go. That realization, combined with a little end-of-the-week fatigue may have limited stock movement Friday.
A stronger dollar also put some pressure on the market, with gold prices plunging and commodity stocks slipping as well. Alcoa, DuPont, Exxon Mobil and Chevron were among the Dow's big losers.
Tech leader IBM and financial firm Travelers Companies were among the other losers.
Chemical company DuPont slumped 7% after it said its seed business will delay the release of several products.
Wall Street ended an uneven session lower Thursday ahead of the November jobs report, giving up early gains sparked by Bank of America's decision to pay back the $45 billion U.S. in government bailout money it took.
Economically speaking, the Labor Department said the U.S. lost 11,000 jobs in November, compared with the median economist estimate for a decrease of 125,000. The unemployment rate fell to 10%, signaling the recovery is lifting the labour market from the worst slump since World War II.
The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, fell to 10% from 10.2% in October. It was the biggest one-month decline in more than three years. Economists thought the unemployment rate would hold steady at 10.2%.
The report shows the battered labour market is recovering, yet job growth is not expected to pick up until later next year. In addition, some of the improvement in the unemployment rate in November is attributable to job seekers giving up and dropping out of the market entirely.
The report showed 15.4 million Americans are out of work and seeking jobs. Meanwhile, another six
million have given up looking and another 9.2 million have only found part-time work when they want full-time work.
Elsewhere, factory orders rose 0.6% in October after rising 1.5% in the previous month.
Economists surveyed by Briefing.com thought orders would hold steady.
Treasury prices slid, ratcheting up the yields on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.47% from Thursday’s 3.36%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The price of a barrel of oil lost 99 cents to 75.68 cents U.S.
Gold prices plummeted $49 to $1,169 an ounce U.S.
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