Stocks on Bay Street were trending downward on Monday morning after hitting record highs last week, as investors remained cautious ahead of a busy week for corporate earnings.
The TSX was off 91.54 points at 19,259.78.
Canadian housing starts rose 21.6% in March compared with the previous month, easily beating expectations and hitting a new record, data from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation showed on Monday.
The Canadian dollar shed 0.07 cents Monday to 79.84 cents U.S.
RBC starts coverage on Boat Rocker Media Inc with an outperform rating and a price target of $12
RBC also starts coverage on Dialogue Health Technologies with a sector perform rating, and a price target of$18
RBC raised the price target on MTY Food Group to $52.00 from $47.00
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange shed 6.13 points to 938.33.
3 of the TSX sub groups were in the green with telecom issues up 0.31 percent followed by a 0.09 percent rise in consumer staple stocks and a 0.03 percent climb in financial issues.
On the downside, tech stocks slide 1.70 percent, materials shed 0.82 percent and utilities dipped 0.60 percent.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks were in the red Monday despite encouraging comments on Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine from Dr. Anthony Fauci. Bitcoin also declined over the weekend.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 176 points, or 0.5%, while the S&P 500 declined 0.6%, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.2%.
Over the weekend, Fauci said Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) vaccine could be ready to resume use on Friday following the Food and Drug Administration’s pause due to rare blood clots.
Coca-Cola (KO) - Get Report posted stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings but noted that sales from stadiums, restaurants and movie theaters continued to be pressured by coronavirus closures.
GameStop (GME) shares rose 9.1% after CEO George Sherman said he would step down in July.
Harley-Davidson (HOG) shares were up 10.9% after the company reported a profit of $1.68 a share on sales of $1.4 billion, topping estimates for earnings of 90 cents a share on revenue of $1.3 billion.
Textron (TXT) shares were rising 0.7% after Credit Suisse upgraded the stock to Outperform from Neutral.
Bitcoin dropped 15% on Sunday, the most since February.
Oil prices dipped 15 cents to $62.98 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices gained 90 cents to $1,781.10 U.S.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury rose Monday to 1.583%.
