Canadian Market Down Sharply At Noon

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is down sharply in negative territory around noon on Thursday on widespread selling amid concerns about economic slowdown.

A sell-off in the U.S. market and weak European stocks are hurting as well. A report from the Conference Board showed the leading U.S. economic indicators continued to slump in November, tumbling by 1%, after sliding by a revised 0.9% in October.

Mirroring all-round selling, all the sectoral indices are down in the red, with those tracking the movements of healthcare and technology stocks falling as much as 3.1% and 2.65%, respectively.

Consumer discretionary, energy, materials, utilities and financials shares are also mostly down with notable losses.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 269.41 points or 1.37% at 19,302.69 a little past noon.

Canopy Growth Corporation (WEED.TO) is down nearly 6.5%. BlackBerry (BB.TO) is down 5.6%, extending losses from the previous session. Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO) is down 5%.

Kinross Gold Corporation (K.TO), Baytex Energy (BTE.TO), Crescent Point Energy (CPG.TO), Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO), TC Energy Corporation (TRP.TO), National Bank of Canada (NA.TO) and Power Corporation of Canada (POW.TO) are down 1 to 2.5%.

On the economic front, data from Statistics Canada showed average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees in Canada rose by 3.4% year-on-year to C$ 1,171.60 in October of 2022, continuing their growth since June 2021.

Wholesale sales in Canada rose by 1.9% month-over-month in November of 2022, the second monthly increase, preliminary estimates showed.