The Toronto Stock Exchange reopened Friday after a technical glitch shut down trading early the day before — and investors picked up right where they left off by dumping shares in just about everything.
Canada’s largest stock exchange opened down more than 800 points, or about 4.5 per cent, as the fear that has settled into financial markets this week continued to batter the share prices of Canadian companies.
Every sector was lower, from banks and energy companies to mining firms, health-care companies and IT.
Oil prices slumped again, with a barrel of the North American crude benchmark known as West Texas Intermediate off $2 a barrel to just over $45 US. That’s its lowest level in more than a year.
A glitch on Thursday that shut the TSX down early closed down the market at a time of widespread fear. The TSX said the problem was caused by a “system capacity issue” and promised it was fixed ahead of Friday’s trading day.
In New York, the rout continued with the Dow off another 600 points, or 2.5 per cent. Other U.S. indices such as the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were also down by a similar amount in percentage terms. Thursday was the worst single day for the Dow in more than nine years, as the benchmark group of 30 high-profile U.S. companies lost 1,100 points.
“It is a race to the bottom for U.S. indices,” Jingyi Pan of IG said in a report. “It may still be too early to call a bottom given the uncertainty around the matter of the coronavirus impact.”
Fear spikes to 9-year high
Wall Street’s so-called “fear index” — the VIX or Volatility Index, which spikes in times of investor uncertainty — jumped by more than $5 to $44.91. That’s its highest level since 2011.
Virus fears “have become full-blown across the globe as cases outside China climb,” Chang Wei Liang and Eugene Leow of DBS said.
Overseas markets were even worse, as most major stock markets in Asia and Europe were down by between three and four per cent.
“As if this week hasn’t been bad enough for markets, the slide in equities accelerated yesterday as … markets underwent their worst day this week, as more and more countries reported fresh cases of the coronavirus,” said Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets.
Since the rout began, more than $5 trillion US worth of value has been wiped out from global stock markets.
