Toronto — The Toronto stock market was slightly higher late Friday morning, held aloft by rising gold stocks as bullion continued to advance.
But investors weren't otherwise inclined to do much amid employment news from Canada and the United States that missed expectations. The S&P/TSX composite index gained 11.9 points to 11,192.7.
Statistics Canada said more than 43,000 jobs were lost last month, a huge miss from economists' consensus which forecast the addition of 10,000 jobs. And the unemployment rate jumped two-tenths of a point to 8.6 per cent, against expectations that it would stay unchanged.
The Canadian dollar moved down 0.35 of a cent to 93.48 cents (U.S.) following the Canadian report.
In the U.S., the Labour Department reported that 190,000 jobs were lost last month, against estimates of about 175,000, while the jobless rate came in at 10.2 per cent, up sharply from 9.8 per cent.
The TSX gold sector ran up almost 3 per cent as the precious metal continued to move further into record territory. The December bullion contract on the Nymex climbed $5 to $1,094.30 an ounce after going as high as $1,101.90.
The base metals sector was up 0.76 per cent as December copper was unchanged at $2.96 a pound.
The TSX energy sector was flat as oil prices retreated on the latest indication of a weak U.S. economy. The December crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $1.07 to $78.59 a barrel.
The TSX Venture Exchange moved up 6.68 points to 1,338.23.
New York markets were slightly lower as investors looked for positives in the disappointing jobs data.
“The headline number was a miss but it's important to look through the numbers,” said Jeff Bradacs, senior investment analyst at MFC Global Investment Management.
“What we saw in the previous two months was positive revisions – September 260,000 job losses to 219,000, August from minus 210,000 to minus 154,000 so through the numbers we saw some positive revisions despite the headlines.”
Mr. Bradacs added that recent readings on the U.S. manufacturing and service sectors have shown expansion and corporate earnings were “fairly strong” for the most recent quarter, with about 80 per cent of companies beating expectations.
The Dow Jones industrials was off 3.3 points to 10,002.7.
The Nasdaq composite index slipped 0.4 of a point to 2,104.92, and the S&P 500 index edged 1.05 points lower to 1,065.6.
The market has been expecting U.S. unemployment to top 10 per cent before peaking. But the pace of job losses has accelerated and is likely to go higher.
The report bodes poorly for U.S. consumer spending, a major component of economic activity. Consumers will keep a tight lid on their spending if they are worried about losing their jobs. And robust consumer spending is necessary to sustain the economic recovery.
Overseas, Asian stocks climbed ahead of the release of the U.S. jobs data.
Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average rose 0.7 per cent and Hong Kong's index gained 1.6 per cent.
London's FTSE 100 index moved up 0.11 per cent, the DAX was flat and the Paris CAC 40 slipped 0.21 per cent.
© Canadian Press
