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— Emily Jackson

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12:37 p.m.Major stock indices in North America were down as of around midday Friday, as concerns about the impact of the coronavirus continued to weigh on the minds of investors.

In Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite Index was down more than 2.6 per cent. In the U.S., meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down around 2.5 per cent, and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite had fallen around three per cent.

The energy sector was hit particularly hard, driven lower as OPEC+ talks in Vienna failed to deliver an agreement to cut oil production. Oil and gas prices have taken a hit from the coronavirus outbreak, which has weighed on demand for energy and helped to push contracts for the Brent and WTI oil benchmarks below US$50 apiece.

Photo by Cole Burston/Bloomberg

Still, some retailers have been seeing their stock trade higher during the outbreak, as consumers stock up. In Canada, shares of grocers Loblaw Companies Ltd. and Metro Inc. were up on Friday by around one per cent and 1.5 per cent, to around $72.61 and $57.20, respectively.

The yield on the Government of Canada’s five-year bond ticked up slightly during Friday morning trading, but still sat below 0.7 per cent, well down from 1.68 per cent the benchmark sat at as of the end of 2019.

-Geoff Zochodne

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11:33 a.m. Oil prices were bludgeoned on Friday, sinking into a deeper bear market after Reuters reported that a proposed OPEC cut was in jeopardy due to opposition from Russia.

Western Canada Select fell another seven per cent by mid-morning to trade at a low of US$29.52, its lowest mark since December 2018 when historically wide oil spreads prompted the Alberta government to enforce an output cut.