MONEY IN BRIEF

Currencies

These are indicative wholesale rates for foreign currency provided by the Bank of Canada on Tuesday. Quotations in Canadian funds. Australia dollar Brazil real China renminbi Euro Hong Kong dollar India rupee Indonesia rupiah Japan yen Malaysia ringgit Mexico peso N.Z. dollar Norway krone Peruvian new sol Russia rouble Saudi riyal Singapore dollar South Africa rand South Korean won Sweden krona Switzerland franc Taiwanese dollar Thailand baht Turkey lira U.K. pound U.S. dollar

Vietnam dong 0.9183 0.3476 0.1873 1.4878 0.1655 0.01744 0.000085 0.01146 0.3119 0.06816 0.8366 0.1565 0.3896 0.0195 0.3457 0.9365 0.08793 0.001143 0.1422 1.3055 0.04183 0.03926 0.212 1.6997 1.2965 0.000056

The markets today

TORONTO (CP) — Canada’s main stock index lost some ground on the first day of trading after Thanksgiving even though pot stocks rose again and led the TSX heading into next week’s legalization of the substance.

The health-care subsector led the S&P/TSX composite index, rising 1.5 per cent. It was steered by Aphria Inc., Canopy Growth Corp. and Aurora Cannabis Inc., which gained between 3.4 and 6.8 per cent on heavy daily trading. Cannabis stocks have been very volatile of late but have surged over the past three months. “I think that’s just sentiment related to the Oct. 17 legalization date,” said Dominique Barker, Portfolio Manager, CIBC Asset Management.

Barker advised investors to be very cautious with the sector at this time as most companies are trading on hope rather than actual financial results. Overall, the TSX closed down 92.12 points Tuesday to 15,854.05, slightly above the low of 15,853.87 on 227.5 million shares traded.

Many of the other sub-sectors were essentially flat on the day with information technology leading on the downside, followed by base metals, gold, materials and consumer discretionary.

Forest products companies and autoparts makers had a down day.

Barker said there’s negative sentiment towards U.S. homebuilding, related to labour shortages, low availability of lots and rising mortgage rates. But she said the number of new households is reinforcing strong fundamental demand.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 56.21 points at 26,430.57. The S&P 500 index was off 4.09 points at 2,880.34, while the Nasdaq composite was up 2.07 points at 7,738.02. The November crude contract was up 67 cents at US$74.96 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down one tenth of a cent at US$3.27 per mmBTU. The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 77.13 cents US compared with an average of 77.30 cents US on Friday.

The December gold contract was up US$2.90 at US$1,191.50 an ounce.