Canada's main stock index fell for the first time in five sessions on Thursday, as technology stocks slid due to weak sentiment stemming from Facebook-owner Meta Platforms' downbeat forecast.
At 9:50 a.m. ET, the Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index was down 231.43 points, or 1.08%, at 21,130.93.
Globally, stock markets turned red again after a disappointing status update from Meta, previously known as Facebook.
Toronto-listed technology stocks slumped 3.8%, including a 5.4% decline by Shopify Inc - the stock with the third-largest market capitalization on the Toronto market.
"Canadian tech stocks like Shopify and Lightspeed have their focus on the payment sector, and with payments getting hurt with PayPal and weakness in Facebook are hurting the market," said Gregory Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments.
The benchmark equity index started off this month on the positive note as trader grew less fearful that central banks would hike interest rates aggressively. However, dour forecast by Facebook-owner Meta Platforms sparked another tech rout.
The energy sector dropped 1.6% as oil prices fell, amid profit-taking, but remained underpinned by tight supply as OPEC+ producers stuck to planned moderate output increases.
While the materials sector, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, lost 1.4% as gold prices eased on firmer US dollar and as Treasury yields strengthened, while copper prices slipped on demand concerns in top consumer China and Europe.
Highlights
The TSX posted no new 52-week highs and one new low.
Across all Canadian issues there were six new 52-week highs and 19 new lows, with total volume of 53.94 million shares.
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