Feb 5 (Reuters) – Canada’s main stock index fell on Monday, dragged down by material and utilities stocks and tracking U.S. markets after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell poured cold water on market speculations of imminent rate cuts.
The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE), opens new tab was down 213.20 points, or 1%, at 20,871.89.
In an interview on Sunday, Powell said the U.S. central bank can be “prudent” in weighing rate cuts, with a strong economy allowing central bankers time to build confidence inflation will continue falling.
“The markets wanted faster and more rate cuts, and some cold water is being poured onto that and as a result, a lot of the interest sensitive names are getting hammered… and Canada is the land of interest sensitive names,” said Barry Schwartz, CIO at Baskin Wealth Management.
“And it doesn’t help that commodity prices have been weak.”
Wall Street’s main indexes also lost ground…
