Toronto's main equity index slipped on Friday as an improved tone in the global economy weighed on gold prices and rattled mining issues. The retreat ended a three-day winning streak on the TSX, but the index still recorded its fourth-straight weekly gain and remained close to three-month highs.
Actions agreed to earlier this week at the G20 summit in London sparked fresh optimism for global growth and weighed on the price of gold - traditionally a safe-haven for nervous investors - yanking gold-mining stocks down 7 percent. Shares of Barrick Gold Corp, the main drag on the overall index, fell 6.8 percent to C$37.31, while Goldcorp followed with a slide of 5.8 percent to C$38.10.
Helping to cushion the slide was a sharp rally by shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, which rallied 19 percent to C$72.80 a day after it delivered a solid quarterly profit and offered a rosy outlook. The S&P/TSX composite index slid 7.38 points, or 0.08 percent, to close at 9,065.76. For the week the index rose 2.8 percent.
The TSX advanced 7.4 percent in March and carried that momentum into the first two April sessions, before losing steam on Friday. The March rally followed a stumble to a five-year low early that month. "It's Friday and really all the work was done for the quarter-end, so I think people are kind of hoping that maybe it's going to quiet done a bit," said John Kinsey, portfolio manager at Caldwell Securities Ltd.
"But everybody is feeling a little better because we had a nice rally from that March low and we actually closed up for the month which was a nice change from that battering that we've been taking," Kinsey said. Six of the TSX's 10 main sectors ended lower, led by a 4 percent drop in the materials group. The information technology sector, led by RIM, bucked the down trend and climbed 6.85 percent.
Kinsey said activity in Toronto could slow down toward the end of next week as the index will be closed on Friday ahead of the Easter holiday weekend. A few pieces of data will be released next week, but the bulk of the attention will be on Thursday's employment data, which is expected to show Canada's economy shed 55,000 jobs in March.
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