Canadian Stocks Close Moderately Lower For Third Straight Day

(RTTNews) - After showing a lack of direction early in the session, Canadian stocks moved moderately lower over the course of the trading day on Friday.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index fell 50.64 points or 0.3 percent to 19,892.06, closing lower for the third straight session.

The extended pullback on Bay Street came as traders continued to react to the Bank of Canada's interest rate hike on Wednesday, which came after the Canadian central bank left rates unchanged for two straight meetings.

Traders also continued to look ahead to the Federal Reserve's highly anticipated monetary policy meeting next week.

While the Fed is widely expected to pause its recent interest rate increases, traders will be looking for additional clarity about the outlook for rates.

Key U.S. inflation reports are also likely to be in the spotlight next week, as the data could impact whether the Fed resumes its rate hikes next month.

On the Canadian economic front, Statistics Canada released a report showing overall employment was little changed in May, as employment fell by 77,000 for youth aged 15 to 24 but increased by 63,000 among people aged 25 to 54.

Statistics Canada said the unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 5.2 percent, marking the first increase since August 2022.

Consumer staple stocks showed a significant move to the downside on the day, dragging the S&P/TSX Capped Consumer Staples Index down by 1.4 percent.

Considerable was also visible among gold stocks, as reflected by the 1.2 percent drop by the S&P/TSX Global Gold Index. The weakness in the sector came amid a slight decrease by the price of gold.

Meanwhile, technology stocks saw notable strength on the day, resulting in a 1.1 percent advance by the S&P/TSX Capped Information Technology Index.