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TSX pulls back amid falling oil prices, as Kinder Morgan makes IPO debut

TORONTO — The Toronto Stock Exchange was dragged lower Tuesday as oil prices retreated and energy firm Kinder Morgan Canada made a lacklustre public debut. The S&P/TSX composite index fell 49.56 points to 15,372.

TORONTO — The Toronto Stock Exchange was dragged lower Tuesday as oil prices retreated and energy firm Kinder Morgan Canada made a lacklustre public debut.

The S&P/TSX composite index fell 49.56 points to 15,372.35, as energy, gold and materials stocks also weighed.

Kinder Morgan (TSX:KML) began its first day of trading on a negative note as questions abounded around the company’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

The future of the project has been mired in doubt after the Green Party and the NDP announced Monday that they have come to an agreement that could see the formation of a minority NDP government in B.C.

Both parties have voiced their opposition to the Trans Mountain expansion, which would see the capacity of a pipeline running from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C.

Kinder Morgan shares opened below the $17 per share price set in the initial public offering and closed at $16.24 on the TSX.

“The market always prefers predictability and certainty, and some of that dissipated overnight,” said Colum McKinley, vice-president of Canadian equities at CIBC Asset Management.

“We’re seeing this reaction in Kinder Morgan but we are also seeing it reflected in other stocks with exposure to British Columbia.”

Weakening oil prices led to the July crude contract declining 14 cents at US$49.66 per barrel and the July natural gas contract falling 17 cents at US$3.15 per mmBTU.

The August gold contract was down $5.70 to US$1,265.70 an ounce and the July copper contract was unchanged at US$2.56 a pound.

On Wall Street, stock indexes snapped a seven-day winning streak to end lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 50.81 points to 21,029.47, the S&P 500 index edged down 2.91 points to 2,412.91, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 7.00 points to 6,203.19.

Some of softness came from shares in international airlines amid news that the U.S. government is considering expanding a ban on laptops from the passenger cabins of flights to the United States.

In March the Trump administration said passengers flying from 10 cities, mostly in the Middle East, could not bring laptops, tablets and some other devices in the cabins, and had to check them instead. On Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said that ban might be expanded to all international flights to and from the U.S.

In currencies, the Canadian dollar dipped 0.13 of a U.S. cent to an average price of 74.24 cents US.

— With files from The Associated Press