Canada's main stock index turned negative midday Monday, burdened by health-care stocks, while investors awaited the Bank of Canada's (BoC) rate-setting decision due this week.
The TSX lost 42.32 points by Monday noon at 19,981.81.
The Canadian dollar eked down 0.01 cents to 74.45 cents U.S.
BoC is expected to keep its key interest rate on hold at 4.5% for the rest of this year, according to a Reuters poll of economists, who said the risk of one more rate hike was high. The decision is expected on Wednesday.
Among company news, Fairfax Financial Partners fell 34 cents to $986.16 after a subsidiary of Kennedy-Wilson Holdings said it plans to sell about $2.1 billion of a loan portfolio it had bought from regional lender Pacific Western to the insurance firm.
Richelieu Hardware tumbled $1.89, or 4.3%, to $41.91, after brokerage CIBC downgraded the industrial firm to "neutral" from "outperformer".
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange eked up 0.45 points to 609.53.
Eight of the 12 TSX subgroups were in the red by noon, as health-care faded 1.5%, financials were off 0.7%, and real-estate weakened 0.5%.
The four gainers were led by information technology and communications, each up 0.4%, while gold scraped together gains of 0.3%.
ON WALLSTREET
The S&P 500 rose Monday to its highest level in nine months, boosted by gains from technology giants like Apple.
The Dow Jones Industrials declined 99.75 points to 33,663.01.
The S&P 500 edged higher 10.10 points to 4,292.47.
The tech-heavy NASDAQ index added 69.49 points to 13,310.26.
Apple rose more than 1% to hit an all-time high, with shares last trading at $183.42 ahead of the widely anticipated unveiling of its virtual reality headset at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Other technology stocks gained, with Amazon and Alphabet last up more than 1% each. Netflix jumped 2.6%
Elsewhere, oil prices climbed more than 2% after Saudi Arabia announced it would further cut output by one million barrels per day starting in July. The news followed a meeting of OPEC and its allies, during which the group decided to stick to existing 2023 production targets.
Stocks are coming off a big rally to end the week on the heels of a strong May jobs report. The larger-than-expected number signaled to some investors that a recession may no longer be in the cards for the economy.
The passage of the debt ceiling bill and avoidance of a potentially catastrophic default also boosted investor sentiment, with President Joe Biden signed bill into law late Friday.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury improved, lowering yields to 3.67% from Friday’s 3.70%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices jumped $1.13 to $72.87 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices gained $3.60 to $1,973.20 U.S. an ounce.
