04:18 PM EDT, 03/21/2025 (MT Newswires) -- The Toronto Stock Exchange added to Thursday's modest losses, dropping more substantially on Friday, as Canadian investors brace for April 2, when U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to impose both broad reciprocal tariffs and additional sector specific tariffs on Canada and other nation.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed down 91.75 points to end the week at 24,968.49. Declining sectors were led by Telecoms, down 1.9%, and Base Metals, down 1.35%. Info Tech, Health Care and Utilities were all higher, but none by as much as 1%.

Looming uncertainty over tariffs is already inhibiting spending. Canadian retail sales declined in January, sliding 0.6% instead of the consensus estimate for a 0.4% drawdown. The previous month was upwardly revised by 0.1%. National Bank noted the preliminary estimate for nominal retail spending in February suggests consumers continued to take a breather. It said: "Such performance is weak considering the stimulus payments for Ontarians in the month, a stabilizing labour market, decent wage gains and cuts in the policy rate.

"Looking at the quarterly perspective, after having progressed 8.5% in the last quarter of 2024, real retail sales are on track to be essentially flat in the first quarter of the year, after two months of data. The second quarter does not bode well either as business confidence collapsing jeopardizes the improvement in the labour market and population growth may increase at a tepid pace. Consumer confidence has already taken a nosedive as tariff rhetoric has reached a fever high and without a reduction in tensions with our southern neighbor, weak consumption appears inevitable," the bank added

Meanwhile, CIBC chief executive Avery Shenfeld noted Canadians were "shocked" to be the first country targeted for tarifffs by the Trump Administration, alongside Mexico and China. But he also noted that with a few exceptions, the tariffs were postponed until April 2 for goods qualifying under USMCA. At that point, Canada could find itself joined by a long list of American trade partners being subject to reciprocal tariffs, if not necessarily levies that U.S. officials will be ready to implement immediately, as well as tariffs on specific sectors like autos.

"In this case, in terms of the implications for Canada, misery loves company. Both the impacts on our exports to the US, as well as our odds of negotiating these tariffs down to a manageable size, would be improved by having many other US trading partners in the same boat," Shenfeld wrote.

Of commodities today, West Texas Intermediate crude oil closed with a gain even as the trade wars pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump threaten to slow demand growth while supply is on the rise. In its first day as the active contract, WTI crude oil for May delivery closed up $0.21 to settle at US$68.28 per barrel, while May Brent crude was was last seen up $0.12 to US$72.12.

Gold moved down from a record high late afternoon on Friday as the dollar rose, pausing a run of eight days of gains that came on safe-haven demand amid worries U.S. trade policies will slow major economies. Gold for April delivery was last seen down $17.70 to US$3,026.10 per ounce.

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