Bay Street May Open On Mixed Note, Reacting To Jobs Data, Earnings

(RTTNews) - Canadian stocks are likely to open on a mixed note on Friday. Tech stocks may rebound, tracking gains of leading US tech stocks in pre-market trades today. Investors will also react to Canadian and U.S. jobs data, and a slew of corporate earnings reports.

Data from Statistics Canada showed the Canadian economy shed 4,700 jobs in October, after a steep 68,300 decline in September. The unemployment rate in Canada increased to 6.7%.

A closely watched report released by the Labor Department showed non-farm payroll employment jumped by 165,000 jobs in October after rising by an upwardly revised 60,000 jobs in September. Economists had expected employment to climb by 62,000 jobs compared to the increase of 29,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.

The report also said the unemployment rate edged down to 4.1% in October from 4.2% in September. The unemployment rate was expected to remain unchanged.

Ensign Energy Services Inc. reported third-quarter net income of C$10.84 million, or C$0.06 per share, as against a loss of C$3.26 million, or C$0.02 per share, a year earlier.

Emera Inc. reported earnings per share of $0.85 for the third quarter, compared to $0.88 a year ago.

Telus reported earnings per share of $0.16 for the third quarter, compared with $0.24 in the year-ago quarter.

Parex Resources' EPS for the third quarter came in at $0.78, up from $0.52 a year ago.

Algonquin Power & Utilities said it posted earnings per share of $0.11 in the third quarter, compared with $0.09 in the corresponding quarter last year.

Pason Systems, Altus, Iamgold Corp., Saputo, IGM Financial and Wheaton Precious Metals reported higher EPS in their third quarter, compared with a year earlier.

The Canadian market ended sharply lower on Thursday with stocks from several major sectors suffering notable losses as investors adopted a "wait and watch" approach to see how the Trump administration plans to resolve the U.S.-Iran standoff.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended the session with a loss of 736.13 points or 2.03% at 35,605.27.

Asian stocks ended weak on Friday after a Wall Street rout wiped out roughly $2.5 billion in market value and sent the Nasdaq into correction territory overnight.

Shares of companies exposed to AI data centers, including crucial chipmakers and semiconductor manufacturers came under significant selling pressure amid concerns over valuations and whether substantial AI spending can generate sufficient returns.

European markets are down in negative territory amid rising uncertainty about the potential impact of the Democrats' sweeping wins in the US midterm elections and returns on AI infrastructure spending.

In commodities, West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures are up $0.43 or 0.45% at $90.95 a barrel.

Gold futures are down $45.10 or 1.1% at $4,068.40 an ounce, while Silver futures are down $0.276 or 0.5% at $52.100 an ounce.