Daily Wrap-up: TSX closes flat despite oil, gold, Bombardier

TSX closes flat despite oil, gold, Bombardier... Canada’s oil, gas industries will bounce back, but not this year... Wages little changed in February...

Steve Randall
TSX closes flat despite oil, gold, Bombardier
There were some positive forces at work Thursday which boosted the main index of the TSX. However, those forces were not enough to offset some weaker global sentiment.
Oil prices continued to rise with the Fed’s decision on interest rate in the previous session weakening the US dollar; gold was also helped by the Fed and the BoJ’s interest rate freezes.

Meanwhile, Bombardier announced a multibillion dollar deal with Delta for up to 125 C-Series jets. The Montreal firm’s news was hailed by its CEO as a “turning moment” and stocks rose 3.5 per cent.

Elsewhere, Wall Street ended the day lower with Apple dragging once again. Asian markets closed mixed with Sydney and Hong Kong advancing while the other major markets dropped. European indexes were also mixed with Frankfurt and London among the winners.
 
The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed down 1.23 (0.01 per cent)
The Dow Jones closed down 210.8 (1.17 per cent)
Oil is trending higher (Brent $47.84, WTI $45.87 at 4.50pm)
Gold is trending higher (1268.90 at 4.50pm)
The loonie is valued at U$0.7972
 
Canada’s oil, gas industries will bounce back, but not this year
A new report from the Conference Board expects better times ahead for Canada’s oil and natural gas industries, but not until 2017. The next year will continue tough, the report says, with oil suffering $3 billion of losses and natural gas losing $1 billion.

Those losses are lower than 2015’s combined $7 billion pre-tax losses and Carlos Murillo, Conference Board economist commented: “Next year, a combination of cost-cutting measures, increasing production and slightly higher oil prices should boost industry profits, helping the industry return to the black in 2017.”
 
Wages little changed in February
Average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees were $954 in February, little changed from the previous month and from 12 months earlier Statistics Canada reported Thursday that earnings growth has levelled off since February 2015. Non-farm payroll employees worked an average of 32.9 hours per week in February, roughly in line with the previous month and a year earlier.
 

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