Equities in Canada’s largest centre fell in morning trade on Thursday in a broad retreat led by slips among heavyweight energy, gold mining and industrial stocks and a pullback in shares of convenience store operator Alimentation Couche Tard.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index remained negative 124.56 points to greet noon at 15,231.02
The Canadian dollar gained 0.16 cents to 76.86 cents U.S.
Bombardier fell 1.6% to $2.41 after the company confirmed its transportation unit plans to cut up to 2,200 jobs in Germany as part of a sweeping savings plan.
The most influential movers on the index included Canadian National Railway, which fell 1.8% to $105.67, Barrick Gold, which lost 2.7% to $20.46, and Suncor Energy, down 1% at $38.15.
Couche Tard Inc declined 2.9% to $62.50. The convenience store operator's shares had jumped earlier in the week on news it had won U.S. antitrust approval to buy rival CST Brands Inc.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc jumped 5% to $23.52 after it said it had completed the sale of its Dendreon subsidiary and that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had accepted unit Salix Pharmaceuticals' marketing application for bowel cleanser drug, Plenvu.
Teck Resources also gained, up 3.5% to $23.26, after agreeing to buy a Mexican mine from a subsidiary of Goldcorp, which fell 3% to $16.86.
On the economic slate, Statistics Canada told us that average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees were $971.00 in April, little changed from March.
Compared with April 2016, earnings were up 2.0%, with most of the increase occurring in the last two months of 2016.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange fell 3.53 points to 765.97
All 12 TSX subgroups were in the red by noon ET, as gold doffed 2.3%, information technology gave back 2.2%, and materials slid 1.5%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. equities fell on Thursday as technology's latest drop washed out strong gains from the big banks.
The Dow Jones Industrials fell 128.14 points by noon to 21,326.47, with Apple contributing the most losses.
The S&P 500 surrendered 17.52 points to 2,423.17, with information technology sliding nearly 2%.
The NASDAQ slouched 90.52 points, or 1.5%, to 6,143.50, after yesterday’s sharp gain.
Tech has been the best-performing sector for most of 2017, rising more than 15% in the period. But over the past month, it has dropped nearly 2%.
Shares of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Apple and Google-parent Alphabet all dropped more than 1.5%. Chip stocks also fell, with Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices trading about 4% lower.
The drop in tech negated gains from the big banks, which followed the Federal Reserve not objecting to the capital repurchase programs from the banks they examined.
The central bank did not object to any of the buybacks or dividend hikes from the 34 banks it reviewed during the second phase of its annual stress test. This is the first time in the seven-year history of the tests implemented in the wake of the financial crisis that all banks have passed.
In economic news, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that economy down south grew at an annualized rate of 1.4% in the first quarter.
Weekly jobless claims, meanwhile, came in at 244,000 for last week, slightly above the expected 240,000.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note collapsed, raising yields to 2.27% from Wednesday’s 2.22%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices gained 33 cents to $45.07 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices slumped $5.50 to $1,243.60 U.S. an ounce.
