Canada's main stock index opened lower on Thursday, tracking a decline on Wall Street, while investors digested the country's economic growth data passed down an hour before.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index gave back 196.77 points, or 1.3%, to begin the final session of April at 15,031.34.
The Canadian dollar decreased 0.13 cents to 71.92 cents U.S.
Canopy Growth Corp said on Wednesday it would lay off 200 employees in North America and the U.K., according to an internal announcement. Canopy shares lost 42 cents, or 1.8%, to $23.22.
CIBC raised the target price on Alamos Gold to $14.00 from $11.75. Alamos shares gained 30 cents, or 2.6%, to $11.80.
CIBC raised the target price on CGI to $88.00 from $84.00. CGI shares dipped 23 cents to $87.92.
Canaccord Genuity raised the target price on Maple Leaf Foods to $39.00 from $36.00. Maple Leaf shares eked ahead one cent to $26.71.
It’s a busy day on the economic calendar.
Statistics Canada reported that, following three months of growth, real gross domestic product was essentially unchanged in February, as declines particularly in educational services, and disruptions in the transportation and warehousing sector stalled the economy.
The agency says declines particularly in educational services, and disruptions in the transportation and warehousing sector stalled the economy. Excluding these two sectors, the economy would have grown 0.2%. Overall, 13 out of the 20 sectors increased in February.
The agency is also saying its March industrial product price index was down 0.9% in March, driven primarily by lower prices for refined petroleum energy products, while the Raw Materials Price Index fell 15.6%, mostly due to lower prices for crude oil.
Meantime, the average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees were $1,046 in February, little changed from January. On a year-over-year basis, earnings rose 3.7%, mostly the result of increases observed from May to October 2019.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange docked 0.81 points to 476.55.
All 12 TSX subgroups were negative in the first hour, with health-care and financial each lower by 2%, while consumer discretionary stocks down 1.5%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks fell on Thursday, the last day of April, as investors digested another round of dismal economic data along with the latest batch of major tech earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average removed 199.76 points from levels fostered by Wednesday’s massive gains to 24,434.10.
The S&P 500 slipped 17.72 points to 2,921.79.
The NASDAQ Composite crept higher 6.29 points to 8,921.
Wall Street came into Thursday’s session on pace for one of its best monthly performances in decades. The S&P 500 was up more than 12% for the month and on track for its biggest one-month gain since 1987. The Dow was up 11% in April, which would be its best month since 1987.
Big tech shares bucked the negative trend in the market after Facebook and Microsoft reported promising revenue figures despite the global coronavirus outbreak.
Both Facebook and Microsoft reported promising revenue figures despite the global coronavirus outbreak.
Facebook jumped more than 6% after it reported that, after an initial "significant" pullback in advertising revenues in March thanks to
COVID-19, it’s seen sales stabilize in the first three weeks of April. The social media giant reported first-quarter per-share earnings of $1.71 and revenues of $17.74 billion.
Microsoft rose about 0.6% after the company reported fiscal third-quarter sales growth of 15% thanks to growth in its cloud business. The software giant said in a statement that the disease "had minimal net impact on the total company revenue" in the three months ended March 31, but cautioned that "effects of COVID-19 may not be fully reflected in the financial results until future periods."
The U.S. Labor Department said another 3.84 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the six-week total to more than 30 million. U.S. consumer spending also dropped 7.5% in March on a year-over-year basis.
The sharp rise in jobless claims and the precipitous drop in consumer spending come as businesses are forced to shut down and consumers stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Prices for the 10-Year Treasury eked higher, lowering yields to 0.60% from Wednesday’s 0.61%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices jumped $2.63 to $17.69 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices edged up 10 cents to $1,713.50 U.S. an ounce.
