After some ups and downs over the course of the day, the Toronto Stock Exchange ultimately ended lower Monday as factors such as higher commodity prices were weighed against things like government debt in Europe.
At the close, the S&P/TSX composite index was down 114 points, or one percent, to 11,109. All industry sectors were negative.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil was up 70 cents to $71.89 US a barrel, while gold rose $13.40 to $1,066.20 US an ounce.
The Canadian dollar was down 29 basis points to 93.17 cents US late in the afternoon.
Canpotex, the marketing and distribution company owned by Canadian potash producers, said it signed a deal to sell about 350,000 tonnes of potash to China's Sinofert Monday. Canpotex's owners, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. and Agrium Inc., were both down as trading wound down for the day.
Housing starts in Canada rose 5.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 186,300 units in January from 176,100 units in December -its highest level since October 2008 – Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Monday.
But the situation surrounding debt levels for Greece, Spain and Portugal remained on investors' minds.
“There are a lot of eyes turned on to Portugal, Spain and Greece,” Francis Campeau, a broker at MF Global Canada in Montreal, told Reuters. “This is something that won't be resolved overnight.”
On U.S. markets, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 104 points, or one percent, to 9,909 at the close. The Nasdaq composite index was off by 15 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,126.
European markets, for the most part, were down up Monday, while the main Asian markets in Japan and Hong Kong were down.
