A tale of two markets today as Bay Street was up a bit, but Wall Street took a plunge.
Investors in New York City reacted to a few hits of bad news. On the NAFTA front, Mexico’s Secretary of Economy said today that he doesn’t think a new deal that could be put before the U.S. congress will be reached by this Thursday. With elections looming in the United States and Mexico, NAFTA talks could get shelved for a time.
On top of that reports on retail sales showed increasing inflation, and America’s Ambassador to China said that the two countries still aren’t close in trade talks. All that worked together to drop the Dow Jones 193 points, closing at 24,706. Meanwhile in Toronto, Canada’s main stock market was up a bit early, but slipped as the day went on and hovered around even, eventually closing at 16,097, up 12 points.
Home sales were down 2.9 per cent nationwide last month according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. The association says stricter rules to qualify for a mortgage that came into effect in January are to blame.
At press time oil is up 20 cents to $71.16 U.S. per barrel, gold is down $26.60 to $1,291.60 an ounce, and the loonie is down over a third of a cent, to 77.71 cents U.S.
