Stocks in Canada’s largest market plummeted soon after Friday’s opening bell, dragged down by a fall in BlackBerry Ltd. shares on disappointing earnings and a retreat in oil prices that weighed on energy companies.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index dropped 119.5 points to begin the first day of the second quarter at 13,374.86.
The Canadian dollar capsized 0.67 cents to 76.22 cents U.S.
The index jumped 4.9% in March for a 3.7% improvement this year, set for its best quarterly performance since the second quarter in 2014.
CIBC raised the target price on Dollarama to $100 from $90. Dollarama shares gave back 34 cents to $91.05.
Canadian Natural Resources declined 4.4% to $33.60, as oil got hammered by a stronger U.S. dollar and doubts about the prospect of a deal to freeze output.
The heavyweight financials group slipped, with Bank of Nova Scotia falling 1.2% to $61.99, and Royal Bank of Canada down 0.8%to $74.27.
BlackBerry tumbled 7.3% to $9.77 after the company reported a larger-than-expected slide in fourth-quarter revenue amid weak hardware sales.
RBC manufacturing PMI data rose to 51.5 in March, from 49.4 in February, its highest level since the end of 2014.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange eased 0.11 points to 580.97
All but one of the 13 TSX subgroups were negative to start out. Energy lagged 2.6%, gold dulled in price 1.7%, and materials were down 1.4%
The only gainer was in health-care, up 0.9%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks across the border traded mixed Friday after some encouraging domestic data and mostly shaking off pressure from declines in oil prices and overseas stocks on disappointing Japanese data.
The Dow Jones Industrials eked up 3.77 points to 17,688.86, with Chevron the greatest contributor to declines and Visa the top contributor to gains.
The S&P 500 fell 9.71 points to 2,050.03, as energy fell 1.5 percent to lead decliners.
The NASDAQ index edged up 1.09 points to 4,870.94
The U.S. economy produced 215,000 jobs in March, with the unemployment rate edging up to 5% and average hourly earnings rising seven cents, according to Reuters. The labour force participation rate rose to 63%, its highest level since March 2014.
In other economic news, February construction spending declined 0.5%. The final University of Michigan consumer sentiment read for March was 91.0. Earlier, the March U.S. Markit manufacturing PMI came in at 51.5.
ISM manufacturing came in at 51.8 in March, topping expectations and up from February's 49.5 print.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury were higher, lowering yields to 1.8% from Thursday’s 1.78%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices retreated $1.46 a barrel to $36.88 U.S.
Gold prices collapsed $23.26 to $1,209.49 U.S. an ounce.
