-- The Toronto Stock Exchange is down 20 points at midday, with most sectors in the green.
Telecoms and info tech the best performers, up 1.5% and 1.3%, respectively.
In Canada, the focus was on the release of existing home sales data for March.
"Clearly, the market continues to struggle amid several headwinds, including soft job markets, economic uncertainty, falling population growth, and strained affordability," TD Economics said after a "soft" performance in Canadian home sales for March, following four straight monthly declines. TD added: "With these challenges in place, 2026 is shaping up to be another modest year for Canadian housing. Loose supply/demand balances should keep downwardly pressuring prices in B.C. and Ontario. Elsewhere, price growth should be firmer, but likely cool as the year progresses."
New listings were also flat during the month. With new listings and sales both barely moving, the sales-to-new listings ratio stayed at 47.8% in March. "This is well below the long-term average and signals modest price growth moving forward", TD said.
Average home prices were also flat in March, while the MLS home price index, a more 'like for like' measure, declined 0.4% m/m, and was down 4.7% on a year-on-year basis. Prices for detached units were down 0.3% m/m, while condo prices fell 0.9% m/m.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) on Thursday cut its home sales growth forecasts for this year amid a "tepid" start to the year for the economy and higher odds of a Bank of Canada rate hike later this year to tame inflation resulting from the oil price spike. Some 474,972 residential properties are forecast to be sold in 2026, a 1% increase over 2025, CREA wrote. This is below the 5.1% increase forecast that it released in January. The national average home price is forecast to rise 1.5% on an annual basis to $688,955 this year, less than the 2.8% growth CREA saw in January. In 2027, national home sales are forecast to climb a further 2.1% to 485,071 units. This could be revised above the 500,000 mark should higher interest rates prove unnecessary to fight inflation, added CREA.
In company news, First Capital REIT (FCR-UN.TO) is to be acquired by Choice Properties REIT (CHP-UN.TO) and and KingSett in a cash and units deal valued at $9.4 billion. The transaction also involves George Weston (WN.TO).