Stocks in Canada’s biggest centre see-sawed in early trade on Friday as lower commodity prices weighed on resource stocks, competing with gains for heavyweight financials.
The S&P/TSX composite index sifted off 16.97 points to open the week’s last session at 13,541.81
The Canadian dollar dropped 0.57 cents at 75.36 cents U.S.
TMX Group, the operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit, as the strong U.S. dollar helped drive up revenue. It said revenue rose 3.3% to $175.9 million. Excluding items, the company earned 85 cents per share for the third quarter. Analysts had expected profit of 84 cents per share on revenue of $173.4 million.
TMX shares added 44 cents, or nearly 1%, to $46.89.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday said he was not shutting the door on the idea of government aid for Bombardier, which has run up big debts. Trudeau said he would wait for a recommendation from Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, who has responsibility for the file. Bombardier's struggles with its CSeries jet project have left the company saddled with debt and looking at a range of options to raise cash.
The plane maker’s stock was up a penny to $1.54.
Brookfield Asset Management shelved a $6.5-billion buyout agreement with Australian port and rail giant Asciano and said it will launch a formal takeover offer instead, threatening a rival proposal and raising the antitrust regulator's role in deciding the outcome.
Brookfield shares demurred 31 cents to $45.44.
First Quantum Minerals has retained Jefferies to explore a sale of its two nickel mines as the Canadian base metal miner looks to trim debt levels and double down on its bets in copper, three sources familiar with the matter said. The sources said the move to sell the assets would help the company achieve its goal of reducing its debt levels by over $1 billion.
First Quantum shares lost 34 cents, or 4.8%, to $6.79.
BMO cut the target price on Enbridge Inc. to $63.00 from $66.00 following the company’s lower-than-expected third-quarter results.
Enbridge shares dropped $1.73, or 3.3%, to $51.15.
Barclays raised the price target on Great-West Lifeco Inc to $37.00 from $35.00 as the company managed to come in ahead of consensus expectations as a result of improved profitability in all of its main geographic regions.
Great-West shares moved up $1.04, or 2.9%, to $35.89.
RBC cut the target price on Telus Corp to $47.00 from $48.00 on slightly lower wireless expectations, offset by additional cost savings.
Telus shares dipped 59 cents, or 1.4%, to $41.32.
On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported that the economy created 44,000 jobs in October, bringing the number of people employed in Canada to over 18 million for the first time. The unemployment rate declined by 0.1 percentage points to 7.0%.
The agency also stated that building permits in September totaled $7.1 billion in September, down 6.7% from the previous month. This was the second consecutive monthly decline. Lower construction intentions for residential buildings and commercial structures in Ontario largely explained the decline.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange slumped 3.11 points to 536.47
Eight of the 13 TSX subgroups were lower to start out, as gold dulled in price 3.5%, materials wilted 1.8%, and metals and mining fell 1.1%.
The five gainers were led by financials, up 0.8%, consumer discretionaries, up 0.4%, and industrials, up 0.3%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks traded in a range Friday after a better-than-expected October jobs report increased confidence in the likelihood of a December rate hike.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell back 63.24 points to 17,798.19, with Goldman Sachs contributing the most the gains.
The S&P 500 slumped 10.7 points to 2,089.23. Financials briefly gained more than 1.5% to lead advancers in the S&P 500, while utilities fell more than 2%.
The NASDAQ index faded 19.76 points to 5,107.97
The report showed the addition of 271,000 jobs, soundly betting expectations of about 180,000, with the unemployment rate ticking lower to 5%.
Prices for 10-year U.S. Treasuries fell, raising yields to 2.34% from Thursday’s 2.24%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices fell $1.00 a barrel to $45.32 U.S.
Gold prices slid $3.66 to $1,104.24 U.S. an ounce.
