B5

David Friend
THE CANADIAN PRESS

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TORONTO - The Toronto stock market plunged more than 750 points on Thursday to its lowest point in five years as bad news ripped through the key sectors, including energy and banks.

Enlarge Photo

Richard Drew/the associated press

Trader Christopher Morie works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday. Toronto energy stocks fell 14.5 per cent as crude oil dipped under the US$50-a-barrel mark for the first time since January 2007. The price was down 7.5 per cent, or $4, to close at US$49.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

And the red also spilled across Wall Street with the main markets were down more than five per cent.

The S&P/TSX composite index slid 765.80 points to close at 7,724.76.

Canada's most-watched stock index hasn't fallen this low since late October 2003, and it's a drop of 47 per cent from the TSX peak just five months ago at 15,073.

The Canadian dollar was down 2.52 cents to 77.31 cents US, after dropping to an intraday low of 77.22.

Toronto energy stocks fell 14.5 per cent as crude oil dipped under the US$50-a-barrel mark for the first time since January 2007. The price was down 7.5 per cent, or $4, to close at US$49.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

TSX financial stocks were down 12.2 per cent after TD Bank (TSX:TD) disclosed $350 million in quarterly credit trading losses. Its shares lost $6.36 to $43.57, and all the other big Canadian banks were also sharply lower.

Royal Bank (TSX:RY) lost 13 per cent to $35.65 and CIBC (TSX:CM) fell 12 per cent to $42.28.

Metal stocks slid 12.1 per cent as Teck Cominco Ltd. (TSX:TCK.B) was down 21 per cent to $4.10 after it suspended dividends on its common shares to help cut debt taken on for the US$14-billion takeover of the Fording Canadian Coal Trust.

The gold sector was the lone gainer, up 2.6 per cent, as the December bullion contract rose $12.70 to close at $748.70 an ounce.

Kinross Gold Corp. (TSX:K) rose three cents to $13.97 on word it is paying US$250 million to buy the Lobo-Marte gold site in Chile from Teck Cominco and Anglo American PLC.

The TSX Venture Exchange tumbled 38.14 points to 691.95.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 5.6 per cent, or 444.99 points, to 7,552.29. The Nasdaq composite was down 5.1 per cent, or 70.30 points at 1,316.12 and the S&P 500 shed 6.7 per cent, or 54.14, to 752.44.

A jump in weekly U.S. unemployment claims to a 16-year high was the latest piece of depressing economic data. The Labour Department said applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 last week, from a downwardly revised 515,000 in the previous week.

Statistics Canada says wholesale sales increased 1.5 per cent to $46.3 billion in September, boosted largely by a partial recovery in the automotive sector.

Other big movers included Nortel Networks (TSX:NT), down 16 per cent to hit a new low of 52 cents.

March Networks (TSX:MN) says a bank in Latin America signed a $6 million deal to provide networked video recording systems and investigation software for use at more than 1,900 bank branches and automated teller machines. Shares were down three cents to $1.84.