Canada's main stock market, the Toronto Stock Exchange, Thursday completed a hat trick of down days to compound an awful year for stock pickers. One that saw the resources heavy index record its worst annual loss in four years, largely on lower commodity prices.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down near 130 points and just above 13,000 after posting its lowest level in two years. It lost 11% in 2015.
Ironically, perhaps, while most sectors were down today, the Energy sector was up. Maybe on some bargain buying. Today though it was Financial stocks that accounted for most of the losses with Scotiabank (BNS.TO), RBC (RY.TO), TD Bank (TD.TO) and Manulife (MFC.TO) all down more than 1%.
Among individual stocks to watch, BlackBerry Ltd (BB.TO, BBRY) lost 1% despite saying it will continue to operate in Pakistan as the government there dropped a request for access to users' data.
Among commodities, NYMEX February Crude gained more than 1% to near US$37 a barrel today as Baker Hughes said the number of US oil rigs fell by two in the last week, and were down near 1,000 over the year.
But WTI oil futures lost near 30% in 2015. This was the first time crude has posted losses in consecutive years since 1998, according to MarketWatch.
According to report by Mark DeCambre on MarketWatch, Tom Kloza, founder and global head of energy analysis at data firm Oil Price Information Service, or OPIS, is offering a pretty dour outlook for crude- oil prices in 2016. Decambre cited Kloza predicting that West Texas Intermediate crude-oil futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange CLG6, +0.98% will hit US$32 a barrel.
The Gold February contract ended the year near US$1,060.20/ t oz, down near 11% for 2015 and down for the third year in a row, not helped by a stronger USD as a strengthening U.S. economy eventually led to a first rate rise in nine years there in mid-December. With its sister metal, the COMEX Silver March contract was down around 0.2% at US$13.82/ t oz today. Bloomberg earlier said silver futures were also headed for a third year of declines, falling near 11% on the COMEX in 2015,
With copper futures, the March 2016 contract was down near 0.35% at US$2.1390/lb. Copper lost near 25% of its value this yr on oversupply and concerns about a slowdown in China demand.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
