TSX sinks despite jump in oil price

TORONTO• The price of oil recovered on Monday from the buffeting it took last week, but it wasn’t enough to stave off losses for the TSX on Monday.

The S& P/ TSX composite index fell 94.46 points to end the day at 12,695.49, after dropping nearly 227 points on Friday.

In New York, markets were mixed. The Dow Jones average of 30 stocks rose 103.29 points to close at 17,368.50, the broader S& P 500 index rose 9.57 points to 2021.94 and the Nasdaq added 18.76 points to 4952.23.

Crude oil futures rose 69 U.S. cents to US$ 36.31 a barrel. Oil has plummeted from a high of nearly US$ 108 a barrel in June 2014 and has fallen even further over the past two weeks as a worldwide supply glut has shown no signs of easing.

Craig Fehr, Canadian market strategist at Edward Jones in St. Louis, said demand had been sluggish for years coming out of the financial crisis, but the focus has switched to the supply side of the oil market as the U.S. has invested in domestic drilling and OPEC has kept production high in the face of plunging prices.

“There’s a lot of supply, and while demand is looking a little bit better, it’s not going to pick up overnight,” he said.

Gold futures fell US$ 12.20 to settle at US$ 1,064.70 per troy ounce and natural gas fell 10 U.S. cents to US$1.894 per 1,000 cubic feet. The loonie ended the day up 0.02 of a U.S. cent to 72.79 U.S. cents, after falling below 73 U.S. cent son Friday for the first time since mid-2004.