Canadian Stocks Down Sharply On Growth, Interest Rate Concerns

(RTTNews) - Canadian stocks are down sharply in negative territory Thursday afternoon, due to sustained selling across the board. Rising concerns about inflation and the impact of higher interest rates on economic growth continue to hurt sentiment.

The Federal Reserve held its interest rate steady on Wednesday but said at least one more hike is likely by the end of this year. The Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank also left their rates unchanged, while Norway's Norges Bank and Sweden's Riksbank, both raised their rates by 25 basis points.

All the sectoral indices are down in negative territory. Technology, materials, industrials, financials and consumer discretionary stocks are among the major losers.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 366.64 points or 1.81% at 19,848.05.

Technology stocks Dye & Durham (DND.TO) and Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO) are down 6% and 4.3%, respectively. Open Text Corp (OTEX.TO), Kinaxis Inc (KXS.TO), CGI Group (GIB.A.TO), Tecsys Inc (TCS.TO) and Descartes Systems Group (DSG.TO) are lower by 2.4 to 3.1%.

Materials stocks Iamgold Corp (IMG.TO), Kinross Gold Corp (K.TO), Pan American Silver Corp (PAAS.TO, Teck Resources (TECK.B.TO), Ero Copper (ERO.TO) and First Quantum Minerals (FM.TO) are down 3 to 4%.

In the financials sector, Nuvei Corp (NVEI.TO) is down nearly 4%. Manulife Financial (MFC.TO), Power Corporation of Canada (POW.TO), Sun Life Financial (SLF.TO), Laurentian Bank (LB.TO), Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO), National Bank of Canada (NA.TO) and Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO) are down 1 to 2%.

Among industrials stocks, Bombardier Inc (BBD.B.TO) is down more than 6%. Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO), Cae Inc (CAE.TO), Ats Corp (ATS.TO), Air Canada (AC.TO) Canadian National Railway (CNR.TO), Tfi International (TFII.TO) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP.TO) are down 2 to 2.5%.

On the economic front, data from Statistics Canada showed new home prices in Canada edged up by 0.1% mom in August 2023, following a 0.1% decline in July. Year-on-year, the cost of new homes fell by 0.9% in August.