Canada's main stock index opened lower on Friday as energy shares fell on the back of lower oil prices, while strong domestic jobs numbers in August reduced investor expectations of an interest rate cut next month by the Bank of Canada.
The S&P/TSX Composite slipped 42.72 points to open the last session of a short week at 16,532.09
The Canadian dollar gained 0.36 cents to 75.96 cents U.S.
CannTrust Holdings said on Thursday it is cutting its workforce by 20%, or 180 people, following Health Canada's investigation into the company's non-compliance in its operations.
CannTrust shares fell 4.5 cents, or 1.9%, to $2.27.
National Bank of Canada raised the target price on Alimentation Couche-Tard to $91.00 from $90.00. Couche-Tard took on 49 cents to $83.81.
CIBC raised the target price on Empire Company to $39.00 from $34.00. Empire, the parent company of grocery store chain Sobeys, gained nine cents to $37.27.
CIBC cut the rating on Trevali Mining to underperform from neutral. Trevali lost half a cent a share, or 2.6%, to 19 cents.
On the economics beat, Statistics Canada reported our economy created 81,000 jobs during August, largely in part-time work. The unemployment rate remained at 5.7% as more people participated in the labour market.
Western University’s IVEY School of Business released its Purchasing Managers Index, which towered over the previous month, at 60.6 in August, from 54.2 in July, but down from 61.9 in August 2018
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange regained 4.65 points to 590.91
Eight of the 12 Toronto subgroups went south in the first hour, as energy was lower 1.5%, industrials were down 0.6%, and information technology subsided 0.4%.
The three gainers were health-care, racing ahead 2%, consumer staples, up 0.3%, and financials, nosing up 0.04%. Shares in communications were unchanged to start Friday.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks were little changed on Friday following the release of weaker-than-expected jobs data.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average continued its winning ways, gathering 58.96 points to 26,787.11
The S&P 500 inched up 3.17 points to 2,979.17
The NASDAQ Composite removed 5.69 points to 8,111.13
Genesco shares hurtled higher $5.75, or 16.3%, to $41.10
The U.S. economy added 130,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected jobs to grow by 150,000 last month.
Unemployment remained steady at a rate of 3.7% while wages grew more than expected. Wages expanded by 0.4% on a month-over-month basis and by 3.2% year over year.
August marked the third straight month that job creation in the U.S. slowed. In June, 178,000 jobs were added while 159,000 were created in July.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury gained slightly, lowering yields to 1.56% from Thursday’s 1.57%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions
Oil prices fell $1.07 to $55.23 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices gained $6.70 to $1,532.20 U.S. an ounce.
