(September 2 – 13:00 ET) – It’s becoming a quiet summer day. Interest rate jitters sparked a sharp selloff this morning. Once the fearful got out of the market, trading became rather flat. The TSE 300 is down about 71 points so far. It made that move from the open. At this point, it is just drifting.
Volume is light with less than 40 million shares crossing the floor. The breadth is unusually negative. Decliners are outpacing the advancers about 2:1. On the volume front, sellers are about 5:2 ahead of buyers.
The market action this morning has become rather familiar of late. Everything is down except the golds. Utilities and industrials are leading the selling.
The fundamentals haven’t changed much today. It’s fear of the U.S. Federal Reserve that continues to plague the market. Important labour data is due out in the U.S. tomorrow. Traders are concerned about comments made by Fed governor Kelley this morning. They think the Fed is poised to slap another rate hike on the market in October.
ATI Technology, the market’s whipping boy of late, continues to sell off. Takeover targets Poco Petroleum and Air Canada are both off. BCE is down too, by $2.55. Nortel and Seagram are both down, along with most of the blue chips. TIPS are down 1% as well.
Montreal is off about 30 points on broad selling. Only the miners are fighting this momentum down. Alberta is off about seven points. Vancouver is down a couple of points as well.
In New York, markets opened off about 200 points. They have bounced back to sit down around 150 points so far. The Nasdaq has been down about 21 points. The S&P has lost 15 points.