TORONTO - The Toronto Stock Exchange fell sharply amid news that smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd. is cutting 4,500 jobs and will post a substantial loss next week when it reports its latest quarterly earnings.
The S&P/TSX composite index dropped 120.31 points to 12,806.47, while the Canadian dollar lost 0.35 of a cent to 97.10 cents US.
On Wall Street, markets were also lower with the Dow Jones industrials down 185.46 points at 15,451.09, the Nasdaq off 14.66 points at 3,774.73 and the S&P 500 down 12.42 points to 1,709.92.
Shares in Waterloo, Ont.,-based BlackBerry (TSX:BB) closed down 16.08 per cent, or $1.74, at $9.08 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. BlackBerry says it expects to post a loss of between US$950 million and US$995 million when it reports its second-quarter earnings next Friday. Most of the loss comes from a massive writedown it will take from poor sales of its new smartphone devices.
In economic news, Statistics Canada reported that the national annual inflation rate slowed to 1.1 per cent in August, from 1.3 per cent in July, while the Bank of Canada's core inflation index rose to 1.3 per cent in August compared with 1.4 per cent in July. The inflation numbers were in line with economists' expectations.
Meanwhile, commodities were lower as December gold dropped $36.80 to US$1,332.50 an ounce, December copper dipped three cents to US$3.32 pound and November crude fell $1.11 to US$104.75 a barrel.
