TORONTO – The Toronto Stock Exchange suffered a triple-digit loss for a second consecutive day Thursday as another sell-off on Chinese markets created a domino effect across the globe.
The S&P/TSX composite index was down 222.10 points at 13,814.53 at mid-afternoon in what was its fourth consecutive losing session and one that threatened to take Canada’s leading index to lows not seen since mid-December.
New York markets were also solidly in the red, with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging 268.05 points to 17,080.68 on top of a 162-point decline Wednesday, putting the widely watched index four per cent below where it started the year.
The Nasdaq was also down a whopping 110.92 points at 4,908.13, while the S&P 500 was down 32.47 points at 2,047.14.
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The sell-off came after the Shanghai composite index dropped 3.4 per cent on heavy selling of energy and property companies.
Toronto’s benchmark stock index hasn’t closed below 14,000 since Dec. 17, when it ended the trading day at 13,861.52. The S&P/TSX composite briefly dipped below 14,000 last month but closed above the largely symbolic level later in the day.
One of the factors weighing on the Toronto stock market was the low price of oil which is near US$40 a barrel – considered the level required for many Canadian oil producers to make a profit. The October contract for benchmark oil was up 21 cents at US$41.48 on Thursday
Elsewhere on commodity markets, September natural gas was four cents higher at US$2.76 per thousand cubic feet and September copper ended its recent slide, rising four cents to US$2.32 a pound. December gold soared $24.20 to US$1,152.10 an ounce.
The loonie, meanwhile, rose 0.07 of a U.S. cent to 76.35 cents US.
In corporate news, Valeant Pharmaceuticals is spending more than US$1 billion to acquire North Carolina-based Sprout Pharmaceuticals, the maker of a libido drug dubbed, if somewhat incorrectly, the female Viagra. Valeant stock was down $15.64 or 4.88 per cent at $304.58.
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