Canadian stock market dives amid oil slide, China's trade data

Canadian stock market tumbled to seven-week low Monday amid investors' concern about the continuous oil price slide and China's weaker-than-expected trade data.

The benchmark Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index dived 329.53 points, or 2.28 percent, to 14,144.17 points, the lowest closing record since Oct. 17 when the index settled at 14, 227.68 points.

Seven of the eight most weighed sectors in TSX suffered sharp selloffs, with Energy leading the decline by 6.49 percent in a single trading day, when oil prices kept sliding lower as January crude contract fell 2.79 U.S. dollars to 63.05 dollars per barrel on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Many energy producers in Canada are struggling to reduce the cost over the collapsing crude oil market. Suncor Energy Inc. plunged 5.73 percent to 33.70 Canadian dollars (about 29.35 U.S. dollars) and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. lost 4.04 percent to 35.64 Canadian dollars.

China's imports unexpectedly plunged in November by 6.5 percent from a year earlier, which also triggered traders' great concern about the impact on Canadian commodities prices.

Metals & mining sector fell 3.45 percent as First Quantum Minerals Ltd. was down 5.47 percent to 16.95 Canadian dollars. Teck Resources Ltd. plummeted 4.27 percent to 15.93 Canadian dollars.

Financials lost 1.45 percent after Toronto-Dominion Bank dropped 2.82 percent to 52.72 Canadian dollars and Royal Bank of Canada gave back 0.68 percent to 79.85 Canadian dollars.

Moreover, Industrials slumped 2.97 percent, Info-tech declined 2.11 percent and Utilities decreased 1.40 percent.

However, health care sector, the only gainer in TSX major sectors, inched up 0.06 percent, while the drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. added 0.07 percent to 165.60 Canadian dollars.

On the economic front, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported this morning that the trend measure of housing starts in Canada was 195,792 units in November compared to 195,796 in October. The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates of housing starts.

"While the Bank of Canada has household imbalances on the watch list of risks to financial stability, there still doesn't appear to be much overbuilding to worry about", according to a report released by Bank of Montreal on Monday.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada reported that the total value of building permits was 7.5 billion Canadian dollars in October, edging up 0.7 percent from September. The increase came mainly from higher construction intentions in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar was down to 0.8709 U. S. dollar Monday, compared with 0.8747 U.S. dollar in last Friday' s trading.