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Canada’s main stock index started the week losing ground for a seventh-straight session amid an off-day for any headlines on NAFTA as negotiations are set to resume Tuesday.

It was a rather directionless day for equities with some pockets of strength and weakness, said Craig Fehr, Canadian markets strategist for Edward Jones.

He expects political drama and issues over trade and tariffs will probably spook the markets sporadically but otherwise return to fundamentals such as economic growth on light news days.

“You put those together and on days when there’s not the distraction of political drama or policy risks, I think that is probably where the markets will gravitate back to which again absent the headline risks probably leads the markets higher over time,” he said in an interview.

The United States has enjoyed strong corporate earnings and economic data, including last week’s labour report. Canada’s employment report was weaker with 51,600 net jobs lost last month that drove the national unemployment rate to 6%, up from 5.8% in July.

While weekend tweets from U.S. President Donald Trump about China stoked some fears, markets didn’t overreact because the trade dispute between the two countries will simmer for awhile, Fehr said.

The S&P/TSX composite index lost 33.18 points to close at 16,057.09, after reaching a low of 16,057.09 on 200.7 million shares traded.

The stock market is down about 2% since Aug. 29.

Monday’s session saw major sectors like gold fall 1.78% and energy move down 1%. Materials, metals, consumer staples and financials also lost ground.

The cannabis-heavy health-care sector led, rising 1.5%. Information technology, consumer discretionary, real estate, utilities and telecom services were up.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 59.47 points to 25,857.07. The S&P 500 index was up 5.45 points to 2,877.13, while the Nasdaq composite was up 21.62 points to 7,924.16.

The Canadian dollar was trading at an average of US75.97¢, compared with an average of US75.96¢ on Friday.

The October crude contract was down US21¢ to US$67.54 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up US2.8¢ to US$2.80 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was down US60¢ to US$1,199.80 an ounce and the December copper contract was up 0.55 of a cent at US$2.63 a pound.