G&M: Citigroup weighs down stocks
Staff, today at 4:48 PM EST
Stock markets closed lower Monday as an announcement of further huge writedowns in mortgage-related debt by the biggest bank in the United States depressed investors.
Losses were steeper in Toronto where the S&P/TSX composite index dropped 90.51 points to 14,273.37 pressured by financials following Citigroup’s announcement that chairman and chief executive officer Charles Prince is out of a job, adding that it will write down up to $11-billion (U.S.) of the more than $55-billion in subprime-related securities it holds.
“We talk about in our business about diversification and here’s an organization that should be and has preached diversification and didn’t take its own advice,” said Fred Ketchen, manager of equity trading at Scotia Capital.
The TSX was also weighed by falling energy stocks as oil prices slid, and lower mining stocks.
The TSX Venture Exchange eased 17.37 points to 3,153.22.
The Canadian dollar ventured further into record territory, closing up 0.14 of a cent (U.S.) to $1.0718 after busting through the previous 50-year-old high on Friday.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average came back from a steep triple digit decline to finish the session down 51.7 points to 13,543.4.
The Nasdaq composite index fell 15.2 points to 2,795.18 while the S&P 500 index retraced 7.48 points to 1,502.17.
The latest headwinds to hit the U.S. financial sector pushed the TSX financial sector down 0.61 per cent.
The December crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange retreated $1.95 to $93.98 a barrel, sending the TSX energy sector down 0.84 per cent. Canadian Press
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