Canada's main stock index rose slightly on Friday as disappointment following a weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report was offset by gains in the financial sector, but it ended the week lower.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index closed up 9.29 points at 12,603.25.
The Canadian dollar slipped 0.4 cents to 96.26 cents U.S. The loonie, which shed 0.4% this week, has sharply lagged U.S. stocks this year.
The market was also weighed by a 6.1% decline in SNC Lavalin Group Ltd., after the engineering and construction company reported a quarterly net loss and lowered its financial forecasts for the year, hit by charges taken on projects in two North African countries. SNC closed at $40.38.
Investors are very negative about Canadian equities in general, and commodities and precious metals in particular.
The materials sector, which includes mining stocks, gave up early gains to fall. Gold miners were also down, as Barrick Gold Corp slipped 0.5% to $17.37 and Goldcorp Inc lost 1.4%. to $27.99.
But financials, the index's most heavily weighted sector, gained as Royal Bank of Canada, the country's biggest lender, advanced 0.8% to $64.43, and Toronto Dominion Bank rose 0.7% to $87.37.
Shares of Turquoise Hill, owned by Rio Tinto, shot up 8.7% to $5 after Mongolia's prime minister said Rio Tinto need not seek parliamentary approval for a $4-billion financing package to fund development of an underground mine at the Oyu Tolgoi copper project.
Markets in Toronto will be shuttered Monday for a holiday.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 2.54 points to 923.56
Eight of the 14 Toronto subgroups were lower on the day, weighed by gold, down 1.6%, while materials and industrials were lower by 0.8% each.
The six gainers were led by health-care, stronger by 1.5%, metals and mining, 1% better, and real-estate, gaining 0.7%
ON WALLSTREET
Wall Street didn't like the jobs report, but it didn't hate it either.
The Dow Jones recovered 30.34 points to a new all-time high of 15,658.36
The S&P 500 index also achieved another all-time peak, adding 2.80 points to 1,709.67. The NASDAQ grew 13.85 points to 3,689.59, or the highest that index has been in 13 years, LinkedIn and Yelp leading the charge.
For the week, the Dow and S&P both booked modest gains. The NASDAQ advanced 2%, thanks to a big rally in Facebook.
On the corporate front, Dell founder Michael Dell sweetened a buyout deal he and Silver Lake Management made for the PC maker.
Toyota reported a 94% jump in quarterly profit, helped by a weaker yen.
Viacom, the media company that owns cable networks MTV and Nickelodeon. also reported a jump in quarterly revenue and profit.
Shares of Weight Watchers plunged after the company reported weak earnings and announced that CEO David Kirchhoff will step down.
Facebook has been a star performer recently, gaining 46% in the past seven trading days. But other social media companies were also having a good week, as traders on StockTwits pointed out.
LinkedIn shares surged after it reported better-than-expected results and boosted its full-year forecast.
Yelp shares were trading at an all-time high after the provider of online reviews reported strong quarterly results earlier this week.
Economically speaking, the U.S. government said Friday that employers added 162,000 jobs in July, below forecasts. But the unemployment rate did fall to 7.4%.
The U.S. Federal Reserve has repeatedly said that improvement in the job market would be a trigger for it to begin removing the liquidity it has been pumping into the market for the past few years. Some experts thought that this so-called tapering could begin as soon as September.
Prices for the 10-year U.S. Treasury jumped, lowering yields to 2.60% from Thursday’s 2.72%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices slipped $1.28 to $106.81 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices were up 80 cents at $1,312 U.S. an ounce.
