(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is down firmly in negative territory around noon on Friday, weighed down by losses in technology, healthcare and materials sections.
The mood remains quite cautious amid concerns about slowing growth and soaring inflation, as well as prospects of more interest rate hikes by central banks.
The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 149.72 points or 0.74% at 20,115.65 a few minutes past noon.
Hut 8 Mining Corp (HUT.TO), down 14.6%, is the biggest loser in the Information Technology Capped Index, which is down nearly 3%.
Dye & Durham (DND.TO), Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO), Nuvei Corp (NVEI.TO), Tecsys (TCS.TO), BlackBerry (BB.TO), Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD.TO) and Kinaxis Inc (KXS.TO) are down 3 to 6%.
In the healthcare sector, Aurora Cannabis (ACB.TO), Tilray Inc (TLRY.TO), Cronos Group (CRON.TO) and Bausch Health Companies (BHC.TO) are down 2 to 6.%.
Among materials shares, Lithium Americas Corp (LAC.TO) is declining more than 5%. Turquoise Hill Resources (TRQ.TO), Capstone Mining Corp (CAP.TO), Ivanhoe Mines (IVN.TO), Hudbay Minerals (HBM.TO), K92 Mining Inc (KNT.TO) and Lundin Mining Corp (LUN.TO) are declining 3 to 4.5%.
Data from Statistics Canada showed retail sales in Canada likely fell by 2% month-over-month in July of 2022, according to preliminary estimates.
Considering June, retail sales rose 1.1% from a month earlier, well above preliminary estimates of a 0.3% increase and picking up from the upwardly revised 2.3% advance in May.
Retail Sales in Canada increased 11% in June of 2022 over the same month in the previous year.
