Stock shock

TSX suffers biggest drop in 3 years,

North American markets fell hard as Canada’s main stock index again posted its worst day in more than three years.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 2.5 per cent or 376.04 points to 14,909.13.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 608.01 points to 24,583.42. The S&P 500 index lost 84.59 points to 2,656.10, while the Nasdaq composite shed 4.4 per cent or 329.14 points to 7,108.40.

The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 76.75 cents U.S. compared with an average of 76.35 cents on Tuesday in the wake of the Bank of Canada’s decision to raise its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 1.75 per cent.

The December crude contract was up 39 cents at $66.82 (U.S) per barrel and the December natural gas contract was down 5.6 cents at $3.23 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was down $5.70 at $1,231.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was essentially unchanged at $2.76 a pound.

“This is really off the walls,” said Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at Newbridge Securities. “Nothing fundamentally changed during the day. I think it’s a technical breakdown. Look at the Nasdaq — down 300 points.”

Amid the flood of earnings, economic data continued to underwhelm, particularly on the housing front. New home sales sank, sending battered homebuilders lower.

In Europe, the pound weakened and the euro dropped on disappointing manufacturing data.