TSX Down More Than 4% As Trade Tensions Resurface

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is deep down in negative territory on Thursday, with investors taking some profits following the previous afternoon's sharp rally after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on new "reciprocal tariffs."

Also, trade tensions between the U.S. and China weigh on sentiment. Trump, who announced the 90-day pause for most countries, not only excluded China from the reprieve, but also raised the tariff on Chinese goods to 125%.

Energy, technology, healthcare, financials, real estate, industrials and consumer discretionary stocks are down sharply.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 983.27 points or 4.14% at 22,743.76 nearly half an hour past noon. The index, which opened with a negative gap of about 130 points at 23,596.86 this morning, spiked 1,220.13 points or 5.4% to 23,727.03 on Wednesday.

The Energy Capped Index is down as much as 6.8%. The Information Technology Capped Index is down by about 6.3%, and the Healthcare Index is down 5.5%.

With several key stocks in the financials space declining sharply, the index tracking the movements of shares from the sector is down 3.8% now.

Vermilion Energy is down more than 14%. Cenovus Energy, MEG Energy Corp, Parex Resources, Freehold Royalties, Precision Drilling Corp, Canadian Natural Resources, Whitecap Resources, International Petroleum Corp and Suncor Energy are down 6 to 11%.

Technology stocks Shopify Inc, Dye & Durham and Celestica Inc. are down 10.2%, 8.4% and 7%, respectively. Constellation Software, BlackBerry, Kinaxis, CGI Group Inc, Lightspeed Commerce and Docebo are among the other big losers.

Manulife Financial, Onex Corp, Bank of Montreal, Sun Life Financial, Bank of Nova Scotia, Laurentian Bank, National Bank of Canada, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Toronto-Dominion Bank are among the notable losers in the financials sector. These stocks are down 2.5 to 8% from previous closing levels.

In economic news, data from Statistics Canada showed the total value of building permits in Canada rose 2.9% from the previous month to $13.1 billion in February, following a downwardly revised 4.3% drop in the previous month.