Canadian Stocks Close Roughly Flat Following Choppy Session

(RTTNews) - Following the pullback seen over the past few sessions, Canadian stocks showed a lack of direction throughout the trading day on Thursday.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index bounced back and forth across the unchanged line before eventually closing roughly flat. The index inched up 4.30 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 20,278.51.

The choppy trading on the day came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of the U.S. Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday.

Economists currently expect employment to increase by 180,000 jobs in November after rising by 150,000 jobs in October, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold at 3.9 percent.

The jobs report could have a significant impact on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting next week.

While the Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, traders will be looking to the jobs data to provide further evidence the central bank could cut rates as soon as March 2024.

Most of the major sectors ended the day showing only modest moves, contributing to the lackluster performance by the broader market.

A slight decrease by the price of crude led to some weakness among energy stocks, while technology stocks moved to the upside along with the U.S. peers.

On the Canadian economic front, Statistics Canada released a report showing the total value of building permits in Canada jumped 2.3 percent to C$11.2 billion in October, led by gains in the non-residential sector.