Canada's main stock index opened lower on Thursday, dragged down by a 2.5% fall in mining stocks, as bullion prices were pressured by stronger U.S. dollar after the Federal Reserve signaled earlier-than-expected interest rate increase.
The TSX Composite index opened Thursday’s session down 7.17 points to 20,223.79.
The Canadian dollar dumped 0.32 cents to 81.11 cents U.S.
National Bank of Canada raised the price target on Alimentation Couche-Tard to $49.00 from $47.00. Couche-Tard shares docked seven cents to $45.10.
Credit Suisse raised the rating on Enbridge Inc. to outperform from neutral. Enbridge shares took on 19 cents to $50.05.
On the economic slate, Statistics Canada reported Canadian investment in foreign securities totaled $18.6 billion in April, mainly in purchases of US securities.
Meanwhile, foreign investment in Canadian securities totalled $10.0 billion, led by acquisitions of Canadian bonds. As a result, international transactions in securities generated a net outflow of funds from the Canadian economy of $8.7 billion.
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem says the central bank is starting to see signs that the country's red-hot housing market is cooling down, although a return to normality will take time.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange lost 7.24 points to 955.12.
Seven of the 12 TSX subgroups were ahead in the first hour, with information technology vaulting 1.8%, health-care haler by 1.4%, and consumer discretionary stocks up 0.7%.
The five laggards were weighed most by gold, dulling 2.8%, materials, weakening 2.6%, and energy, 1.9% less energetic.
ON WALLSTREET
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell for a second day as investors digested the Federal Reserve’s latest policy update, where it moved up its timeline for interest rate hikes and forecast higher inflation.
The 30-stock index doddered 180 points to open Thursday at 33,725. weighed down by biggest losers Dow Inc. and Caterpillar as most commodity prices took a hit for a second day.
The S&P 500 slid 7.75 points to 4,205.25.
The NASDAQ hiked 65 points to 14,037.75. Investors huddled in some Big Tech stocks with Tesla, Snowflake and Shopify all up about 1%. Twilio gained more than 5%.
Lennar popped 3.5% after reporting better-than-expected earnings.
The closely-watched Federal Reserve meeting Wednesday spurred a selloff in equities after the central bank moved up its timeline for rate hikes, seeing two increases in 2023
The Fed also hiked its inflation forecast to 3.4% for the year, a percentage point higher than the FOMC’s forecast in March.
Materials stocks were weaker Thursday as higher rates may further take the air out of a big commodities rally in 2021. China is also cracking down on the commodities surge to ease inflation fears. Freeport-McMoRan led materials stocks lower, down about 2%. Copper futures were off by 2%.
The U.S. Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims rose last week to 412,000, up from the previous week’s 375,000. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected jobless claims of 360,000.
Prices for 10-Year Treasurys were higher, bringing down yields to 1.54% from Wednesday’s 1.57%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices lost 26 cents to $71.89 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices gave back $83.00 to $1,778.40 U.S. an ounce.
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