Canadian shares retreated, led by miners, following the slump of bullion to the lowest level in five years.
The resource-heavy benchmark Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index (TSE:OSPTX) skidded 1.1 percent to 14,489.37 at 12:25 p.m. in Toronto. Five shares declined for every stock that advanced as eight out of ten share groups were in the negative territory.
The materials sub-index, which includes mining shares, tumbled 4.6 percent as gold prices plunged as much as 4 percent. Goldcorp (TSE:G), Canada’s largest gold miner by market value, sank 9.7 percent to C$17.24. Barrick Gold (TSE:ABX), the second-largest, tanked 12 percent to C$10.03.
Spot gold fell $45.55 to its weakest since March 2010 at $1,088.05 an ounce shortly after the Shanghai Gold Exchange opened, with volumes soaring to a record.
The energy sector, the main index's second most heavily weighted group, sank 2.1 percent as oil prices fell. Suncor Energy (TSE:SU), Canada's largest oil sands producer, slipped 1.1 percent to C$34.20. Enbridge (TSE:ENB), Canada's largest pipeline company, gave back 1.9 percent to C$58.44.
Light, sweet crude for August delivery recently fell 0.9 percent to $50.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, fell 0.8 percent to $56.64 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
Financials, the index's most heavily weighted sector, decreased 0.6 percent. Royal Bank of Canada (TSE:RY), which has the heaviest weighting in the index, eased back 0.2 percent to C$77.16. Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSE:TD), the second-largest bank by market value, lost 0.5 percent to C$52.78.
Boardwalk Real Estate Investment Trust (TSE:BEI.UN) fluctuated and was last down 0.2 percent at $60.05. The real estate investment trust agreed to sell its Windsor portfolio to a private REIT for C$136.2 million as part of its review of non-core properties.
The junior S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index (CVE:OSPVX) dipped 0.9 percent to 623.32 at 12:25 p.m. in Toronto.
In economic news, Canadian wholesale sales fell on a decline in motor vehicles in May, a month where economists predicted they would hold onto gains from the last two months. Sales fell 1 percent to C$54.5 billion, Statistics Canada said today. The decline matched the lowest of 15 economist forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey with a median estimate for sales to be little changed.
A weekly gauge of Canadian consumer sentiment dropped to a four-month low last week after the Bank of Canada said the nation’s economy “contracted modestly” in the first half, sparking a debate among policy makers and economists about whether the shrinkage qualifies as a recession.
In the U.S. market, shares hit a fresh intraday record shortly after the opening bell today, but optimism faded quickly and all three indexes were trading flat. The S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) inched up 0.1 percent to 2,128.61 at 11:54 a.m. in New York. The 30-company Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) edged up 0.1 percent to 18,108.79, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC). Most followed shares included Morgan Stanley, Zillow SunEdison, Microsoft, Horizon Pharma, Exelixis, Halliburton, Hasbro, Cal-Maine Foods, Newmont Mining, and Lockheed Martin.