The Toronto stock market’s main index closed lower on Friday, driven down by energy stocks as crude oil futures declined.
The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was down 81.51 points to close at 15,183.13 with the energy sector losing 1.4% and consumer discretionary stocks falling 0.97%.
The telecommunications sector was up 0.44%, while gold companies inched 0.13% higher on a rise in bullion prices.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 31.71 points at 21,580.07, the S&P 500 index was down 0.91 points at 2,472.54 and the Nasdaq composite index was down 2.25 points at 6,387.75.
Andrew Pyle, a senior wealth adviser at Scotia Wealth Management, said the drop in U.S. stocks came in spite of strong economic data earlier this week.
“It’s an interesting decline because if you look at the economic fundamentals coming out of the States this week, they generally were positive or better than expected — retail sales, housing starts,” said Pyle. “It’s a week where the fundamental picture actually looks a little brighter.”
Investors may be running out of steam due to the political tumult in Washington, he added.
“The premise going into this year with a Republican White House and Republican Congress was that things would happen fairly quickly — from health-care reform to, more importantly, fiscal reform, tax reform,” said Pyle. “That’s not happening, so that’s why we’re starting to see investors getting a little disappointed and losing patience.”
The Canadian dollar was trading at an average price of US79.69¢, up 0.23 of a cent.
The September crude contract was down US$1.15 at US$45.77 a barrel and the August natural gas contract was down US7.3¢ at US$2.97 per mmBTU.
The August gold contract was up US$9.40 at US$1,254.90 an ounce and the September copper contract was up almost a cent at US$2.72 a pound.