TORONTO -- Financials led the way to a loss on the Toronto stock market as traders digested the first reports from a heavy slate of top-drawer economic data.
The S&P/TSX composite index declined 53.32 points to 13,495.54, its third straight decline.
The Canadian dollar was off 0.11 of a cent at 93.88 cents US.
U.S. markets were also firmly in the red as the Dow Jones industrials gave back 44.89 points to 16,425.1, the Nasdaq was down 18.23 points to 4,113.68 and the S&P 500 index was 4.6 points lower at 1,826.77.
On the economic front, U.S. factory orders rose 1.8 per cent in November, better than the 1.7 per cent gain that economists had forecast. But the latest reading on the American non-manufacturing sector disappointed. The Institute for Supply Management's service sector index came in at 53, against the 55.1 reading that had been expected.
Investors will also start to focus on corporate earnings later this week when resource company Alcoa hands in fourth-quarter data.
