Toronto Stocks Pare Back Gains; Neo Performance Materials Rises on Estonia Operations Improvements

By Adriano Marchese

Toronto-listed stocks gave up some ground Friday at midday after Canadian equities rise 0.7% Thursday. Most sectors were lower mid-session, with energy, communications and commercial services the outsized laggards. Of the few in the green, process industries was the most notable with only miner gains.

According to Statistics Canada, foreigners and nonresident investors in October sold a net 15.75 billion Canadian dollars, the equivalent of $11.75 billion, in Canadian securities, the largest selloff since March.

Canada's S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 0.66% and the blue-chip S&P/TSX 60 fell by 0.61% to 1245.99.

Neo Performance Materials expects to improve performance at its rare-earth operations in Estonia, which will include employee restructuring. For this, the company expects a charge to its fourth-quarter earnings, including up to a $3 million noncash charge for impairment of assets and less than $1.5 million of employee restructuring costs, but noted that the savings should offset these costs in less than a year. Shares were up 1.1% at C$7.47.

Other market movers:

Baylin Technologies shares were 5.4% higher at C$0.20 that its subsidiary secured 2.5 million Canadian dollars ($1.9 million) in new orders.

Write to Adriano Marchese at adriano.marchese@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 15, 2023 12:18 ET (17:18 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.