Stocks in Canada’s biggest market slipped on Friday as weakness in oil prices weighed on energy shares, offsetting a gain in gold miners.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index regressed 85.37 points to begin the week’s last day of trading at 15,179.27
The Canadian dollar added 0.21 cents to 79.61 cents U.S.
Husky Energy reported a smaller loss on Friday, helped partly by higher oil prices and a rise in production. Husky shares dropped 33 cents each, or 2.3%, to $14.28.
Encana Corp on Friday posted a quarterly profit compared with a loss a year earlier, when it took impairment and hedging charges of about $641 million. Encana shares gained 38 cents, or 2.1%, to $12.55.
Hudson's Bay Co is unlikely to take its vast real estate holdings public any time soon, the head of RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, a partner in a venture that holds some of those assets, said on Thursday. The Bay saw its shares fell 10 cents to $11.02.
Desjardins cut the rating on Dragonwave Inc. to sell from hold. Dragonwave shares were unchanged at $1.13.
Eight Capital raises the rating Dream Global REIT to buy from neutral. Dream units copped one penny to $10.38.
Barclays raised the target price on Rogers Communications to $70.00 from $63.00. Rogers shares gained 21 cents to $65.09.
On matters economic, Statistics Canada reported inflation in this country rose 1.0% on a year-over-year basis in June, following a 1.3% increase in May. On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, the Consumer Price Index was unchanged in June, after being down 0.2% in May.
Also, the agency said retail sales hiked for the third consecutive month, rising 0.6% to $48.9 billion in May. StatsCan said sales were up in five of 11 sub-sectors, representing 56% of total retail trade.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange regained 1.8 points to 766.33.
All but one of the 12 TSX subgroups were negative starting out, with consumer discretionary stocks fading 1.3%, energy off 1%, and consumer staples trailing Thursday’s close 0.7%.
The lone gainer was in gold, up 0.4%.
ON WALLSTREET
Equities south of the border opened slightly lower as earnings season rolled on.
The Dow Jones Industrials stumbled 89.37 points to 21,522.41, with General Electric contributing the most losses.
The S&P 500 dipped 7.02 points to 2,466.43, with industirals leading decliners.
The NASDAQ slipped 14.32 points to 6,390 from Thursday’s record high, endangering a 10-day winning streak.
Dow component GE reported better-than-expected quarterly results, but the stock fell more than 4% as sales fell 12% year-over-year. The drop in revenue came as weakness in GE's energy connections business offset strength in renewables and power units. GE also saw its net profit slump 58% year over year.
The three major indexes notched record highs this week as quarterly earnings from S&P 500 companies largely outperform expectations. Microsoft, Honeywell and Morgan Stanley are just a few of the companies that reported earlier this week.
Next week will be the busiest one this earnings season, with about 170 S&P 500 components scheduled to report. Investors will also turn their eyes towards Russia as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC countries meet to discuss compliance of agreed production cuts and how to bring down inventory levels.
Prices for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose Friday, lowering yields to 2.24% from Thursday’s 2.26%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices declined 42 cents to $46.50 U.S. a barrel
Gold prices gained $4.50 to $1,250.00 U.S. an ounce.
