Stocks in Canada’s largest market showed promise at the beginning on Tuesday, but rapidly lost momentum approaching midday, as damage in health-care and tech stocks weighed heavily.
The S&P/TSX Composite staggered back 141.36 points, to pause for lunch Tuesday at 19,858.33.
The Canadian dollar dipped 0.07 cents at 76.80 cents U.S.
Cronos Group jumped 42 cents, or 11.5% $4.07, after the pharmaceutical firm posted upbeat first-quarter results.
Elsewhere in health-care, Bausch Health Companies slumped $4.04 or 24.1%, to $12.74, after posting disappointing first-quarter results just a few days after the Bausch + Lomb Corp spinoff IPO.
Suncor Energy inched 60 cents, or 1.3% lower, to $44.68, despite Canada's number-three oil major exceeding analysts' estimates for first-quarter profit and boosted dividend by 12% to its highest level on Monday.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange gained 10.32 points, or 1.4%, to 730.13
All 12 TSX subgroups moved south by noon hour, with health-care collapsing 6%, information technology retreating 2.6%, and industrials losing 1%.
ON WALLSTREET
U.S. stocks dipped Tuesday as the major averages struggled to recover from three days of heavy selling that brought the S&P 500 to its lowest level in more than a year.
The Dow Jones Industrials shed earlier gains and skidded 141.62 points to 32,104.08.
The S&P 500 slid 3.49 points to 3,987.75.
The NASDAQ Composite hung onto gains of 49.12 points to 11,672.37.
Home Depot, 3M, Nike and JPMorgan Chase fell about 2% each, leading the market losses.
Meanwhile, Amgen added 2%, leading Tuesday’s gains along with beaten-up technology stocks like Microsoft, Intel, Salesforce, and Apple.
The technology sector has suffered some of the biggest losses in recent weeks as investors moved out of growth areas and into safe havens like consumer staples and utilities amid recessionary fears.
On the earnings front, shares of Peloton Interactive plummeted 15% after reporting a wider-than-expected loss in the recent quarter. AMC’s stock rose 2.8%, while Novavax dropped about 13% on the back of recent quarterly earnings.
Investors are looking ahead to earnings from Coinbase, Roblox, RealReal and Allbirds after the bell.
Treasury prices leaped, with yields dropping to 2.95% from Monday’s 3.03%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices slumbered $3.29 to $99.80 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices crumbled $17.20 to $1,841.40 U.S. an ounce.
