A weak job’s report weighed on oil, which dropped below $100, a first since February.
June delivery for light sweet crude is off 4.5% to $97.62.
The drop in oil prices hit the TSX, which dropped 1.56% to 11,827.77. The TSX Venture Composite Index was off 1.41% to 1,396.54.
The all-important U.S. jobs report was released today and came in under analysts concensus. Only 115,000 jobs were added in April. The jobless rate is tagged at 8.1%, a three-year low.
According to a survey of economists by Bloomberg News, 85 economists were expecting for 160,000 jobs to be added.
While the jobs report doesn’t look good, it may be hiding news that is not all bad either.
“The true underlying trend may be somewhere between the good news of January and February (caused in part by warm weather, which pulled forward various spending) and the disappointing news of March and April (because some spending that would normally have happened then instead happened earlier),” writes David Leonhardt for Economix.
If that is the case, Leonhardt estimates the US will add 175,000 net new jobs per month on average.