Canadian Market Down Firmly In Negative Territory

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is down sharply Thursday afternoon amid concerns the trade war with the U.S. could hurt growth and adversely impact corporate earnings.

Technology, healthcare, utilities, financials and materials stocks are reeling under pressure.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 328.27 points or 1.32% at 24,542.55.

Technology stocks Descartes Systems Group and Celestica Inc are down 11% and 10%, respectively. Coveo Solutions, Bitfarms, BlackBerry, Sylogist, Docebo Inc., Tecsys, Shopify Inc., Kinaxis and Lightspeed Commerce are down 3 to 7%.

Healthcare stock Tilray Inc is down 6.7%. Chartwell Retirement Residences is declining 1.1%.

In the utilities section, Transalta Corp is down 5%, Brookfield Infra Partners is declining 4% and Capital Power Corp is lower by about 3.7%. Algonquin Power and Utilities is down 2.3%.

Brookfield Asset Management is down 5.7%. Brookfield Corporation is declining 5%. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Goeasy, Fairfax Financial Holdings, Manulife Financial, Onex Corp, Bank of Montreal, IA Financial Corp and Bank of Nova Scotia are down 1.2 to 3%.

Materials shares Hudbay Minerals, Algoma Steel Group, Torex Gold Resources, Iamgold Corp, Ssr Mining, Aya Gold & Silver, Equinox Gold Corp, Calibre Mining Corp, Kinross Gold Corp and MAG Silver Corp are down 3 to 4.5%.

Canadian Natural Resources is up by about 1%. The company reported fourth quarter net earnings of C$1.14 billion compared to $2.63 billion, last year. Earnings per share was C$0.54 compared to C$1.21.

In economic news, the Ivey Purchasing Managers Index in Canada soared to 55.3 in February 2025 from 2020-lows of 47.1 in January.

The Canadian trade surplus widened to CAD 4.0 billion in January 2025, the largest since May 2022.

Canada's merchandise exports rose 5.5% to a record CAD 74.5 billion, while imports increased 2.3%, marking the fourth consecutive monthly rise for both.