Canadian Market Down Sharply On All-round Selling; TSX Down Nearly 2%

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is down sharply on Friday with stocks across the board reeling under sustained selling pressure amid rising prospects of sharper interest rate hikes after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell toughened his stance on inflation, saying, "There's something in the idea of front-loading" rate hikes.

Mirroring widespread selling, all the sectoral indices are down in negative territory. Materials, energy, technology, financials and consumer discretionary stocks are down sharply, and the sectoral indices tracking the performance of these stocks, are down 2 to 2.4%.

Shares from industrials, communications, healthcare and real estate sectors are also mostly down with sharp losses.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 426.38 points or 1.97% at 21,224.03.

Teck Resources (TECK.B.TO) is plunging nearly 8.5%. Nuvei Corporation (NVEI.TO), WSP Global Inc (WSP.TO), Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC.A.TO), Onex Corporation (ONEX.TO), Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO), Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO), Constellation Software (CSU.TO) are down 3 to 4.2%.

Nutrien (NTR.TO), Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO), Fairfax Financial Holdings (FFH.TO) and Canadian National Railway (CNR.TO) are also down sharply.

Data released by Statistics Canada showed retail Sales in Canada increased 7.4% in February of 2022 over the same month in the previous year.

On monthly basis, retail sales rose 0.1% in February after an upwardly revised 3.3% gain from the previous month.

Another report from Statistics Canada showed producer prices in Canada jumped 4% month-over-month in March of 2022, the seventh consecutive monthly increase, and the largest monthly change on record since the series began in 1956.