By Ketki Saxena
Investing.com -- At 1:15 p.m in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite was at 18,640.43points, down 1.05% at midday, as recession fears and commodities weighed on the Canadian index.
All TSX sectors were in the red at midday barring industrials (+0.23%) and tech (+0.27%) were in the red at midday, as investors await minutes from U.S. Federal Reserve’s last monetary policy meeting, due at 2:00 p.m today and likely to indicate further aggressive rate hikes from the U.S. central bank this year.
The Canadian index was most pressured by energy (-4.57%) as crude gave up gains from early this morning to trade as fears over an economic downturn outweighed supply concerns. U.S. crude prices were down 3.1% a barrel, while Brent crude lost 2.7%.
Materials (-2.00%) also weighed heavily on the Canadian index, as copper fell to a 20-month low, and gold (-1.6%) continued to slide after yesterday’s over 2% decline.
Continuing yesterday’s losses, resource stocks were the biggest losers on the TSX today, including Spartan Delta Corp (-7.37%), Athabasca Oil (-6.19%), Vermillion Energy (-6.48%), Paramount Resources (-6.06%), and Tamarack Valley (TSX:TVE) (-6.16%).
Today’s biggest gainers included Tilray (TSX:TLRY) (+7.36%), Canfor (TSX:CFP) Corporation (+4.53%), West Fraser Timber (TSX:WFG) (+4.47%), Interfor Corp (TSX:IFP) (+4.09%), and Blackberry (TSX:BB) (+3.94%).