The Toronto stock market appeared headed for a sharply lower open Friday amid gloom over deterioration in U.S. and Canadian job creation.
The S&P/TSX index dropped 59.07 points to end Thursday at 12,363.05, continuing a downward trend that saw the index plummet 260 points on Wednesday.
The Canadian dollar dipped 0.81 cents to 97.93 cents U.S. early Thursday.
It has been a tough week on markets, with the TSX moving into the negative column for the year to date on worries about the pace of the U.S. economy and purchasing managers indexes from China that, while showing expansion, missed expectations.
The resource-based TSX has been particularly pressured by mining stocks. Base metals are down 17.5% so far this year, reflecting weak commodity prices amid a slow global economic recovery.
And the gold sector has fallen 22.2% as gold companies have suffered from bullion costs that haven’t kept pace with growing costs of getting the precious metal out of the ground.
It’s a fairly full plate economically this morning, with, employment declining by 55,000 jobs in March, all in full time. The unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 7.2%.
Moreover, Canada's merchandise exports decreased 0.6% in February, while imports edged up 0.1%. So, our trade deficit with the world widened from $746 million in January to $1.0 billion in February.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange stepped back 11.90 points Thursday to 1,026.72
ON WALLSTREET
A rough Friday is in the cards for the stock market, which faces a sorely disappointing report on the jobs market
Futures for the Dow Industrials tailed off 125 points, or 0.9%, to 14,406. Futures for the S&P 500 settled 15.5 points, or 1%, to 1,539, and futures for the NASDAQ fell back 26.5 points, or 1%, to 2,758.50
In company news, shares of F5 Networks plunged 17% in pre-market trading Thursday after the technology company announced preliminary quarterly results that fell well short of expectations on sales and earnings. The announcement could impact other companies in the networking sector, such as Cisco Systems, which dropped more than 3% in pre-market trading, and Juniper Networks.
In South Korea, Samsung Electronics beat market expectations with strong guidance, fueled by the upcoming new model of its Galaxy smartphone, and ahead of its impending quarterly report. The new Samsung product could present more competition to iPhone maker Apple
Economically speaking, the U.S. Labor Department released its monthly jobs report showing 88,000 jobs were created in March, dragging down the unemployment rate to 7.6%. That was far below expectations.
Economists had expected the report to show that the economy added 190,000 jobs in March, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 7.7%.
The report follows a surprisingly negative weekly jobless claims report on Thursday.
At 3 p.m. ET, the Federal Reserve will release data on consumer credit.
European markets fell in midday trading. The FTSE 100 in London, the DAX in Frankfurt and the CAC 40 in Paris dropped more than 1%.
Asian markets ended mixed. Japan's Nikkei added 1.6% as the Bank of Jpan-induced rally continued. The Nikkei 225 reached its highest level in nearly five years on Friday, as the Bank of Japan took aggressive action to counter persistent deflation by pumping more money into the economy.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbled 2.7%. Shanghai's market was closed for a holiday
Oil prices registered at $92.56 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices came in at $1,552.90 U.S.
