Canada's main stock index slipped on Friday, as a strong domestic jobs report fed into global concerns about faster withdrawal of central bank support that has kept investors on edge this week.
At 10:09 a.m. ET, the Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index was down 9.9 points, or 0.1%, at 21,062.3. The benchmark has shed about 0.8% this week, set for its worst weekly session since early December.
Wall Street indexes were flat after a closely watched US nonfarm payrolls report showed much softer-than-expected new jobs created last month, but did not deter investors from pricing in at least three interest rate hikes this year.
Meanwhile, the stronger-than-expected domestic data raised expectations for the start of a policy tightening cycle by the Bank of Canada in the coming months.
The Canadian economy added a net 54,700 jobs in December, beating analysts' expectations of 27,500, while the jobless rate dipped to 5.9% from 6.0% in November, Statistics Canada data showed.
This was the lowest since the 5.7% seen in February 2020, just before the pandemic outbreak.
Energy stocks lift Toronto index from two-week low
"It does increase the pressure on the Bank of Canada to move more quickly, just incrementally," said Andrew Kelvin, chief Canada strategist at TD Securities.
"If we'd seen a big move higher in wages, I think that would have necessitated a January move. We didn't see that wage move, so the Bank of Canada still has a little bit of flexibility depending on how they want to treat the shock from COVID in this wave."
The central bank said last month that economic slack caused by the pandemic had substantially diminished, signaling a first rate hike could come soon.
The energy sector climbed 0.1% as US crude prices steadied, eyeing their biggest weekly gains since mid-December owing to supply worries fueled by unrest in Kazakhstan and outages in Libya.
The rate-sensitive financials sector gained 0.3%.
The materials sector, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, lost 0.3% as gold futures fell 0.2%.
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