Canada’s stock market took another step backwards today, pulled down by falling bank and marijuana stocks.
The TSX fell by 206 points with all 11 sectors in the red.
The index dropped despite a two-month-old report released today from Statistics Canada showing a 0.3 percent uptick in the country’s economy in October, following a 0.1 percent decrease in September.
There was growth in 15 of 20 industrial sectors, led by increases in manufacturing, finance and insurance, and wholesale trade.
But the focus today was on declining bank and pot stocks and the sliding price of oil.
Manulife Financial was the fourth most actively traded company on the TSX and lost 4.2 percent, while the Bank of Nova Scotia slipped three percent.
Marijuana companies continued their downward trend, with Aphria Inc. leading the losses by dropping 7.3 percent.
And oil prices skidded, marking its worst weekly showing in three years.
A glut in global supplies pushed oil 47 cents lower to $45.41 US a barrel.
In New York, the Dow just can’t get out of the red, with the Trump Administration’s threat of a partial government weighing on investor sentiment.
President Donald Trump tweeted that the Democrats “will probably vote against border security and the wall even though they know it is desperately needed. If the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last for a very long time.”
Trump’s tweet cast a long shadow on Wall Street, erasing gains earlier in the day.
One of the lone bright spots was Nike, which jumped 7.1 percent after the shoe company reported a 13-percent jump in fourth quarter revenue, driven by double-digit revenue growth in international markets and NIKE Direct globally, and a return to growth in North America.
But Nike’s surge wasn’t near enough to lift the Dow near the flat line, as the index plunged 414 points with broad-based losses across every sector.
The Nasdaq fell just under three percent, or 195 points, with the influential FAANG stocks losing their bite as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Netflix all declined between 3.1 and 6.3 percent.
The Canadian dollar lost nearly half a cent today, down 49/100ths of a cent to $0.7352 US while gold was down $8.70 to $1,255 an ounce.
