Feb 5 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index fell on Monday, dragged down by material and utilities stocks and tracking U.S. markets after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell poured cold water on market speculations of imminent rate cuts.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE), opens new tab was down 213.20 points, or 1%, at 20,871.89.
In an interview on Sunday, Powell said the U.S. central bank can be "prudent" in weighing rate cuts, with a strong economy allowing central bankers time to build confidence inflation will continue falling.
"The markets wanted faster and more rate cuts, and some cold water is being poured onto that and as a result, a lot of the interest sensitive names are getting hammered... and Canada is the land of interest sensitive names," said Barry Schwartz, CIO at Baskin Wealth Management.
"And it doesn't help that commodity prices have been weak."
Wall Street's main indexes also lost ground on Monday.
In Canada, materials stocks (.GSPTTMT), opens new tab fell 1.5% after gold prices hit over-a-week low on a higher dollar and bond yields, while Chinese demand concerns weighed on copper prices.
Utilities stocks (.GSPTTUT), opens new tab fell 1.5%. The sector was pulled down by Innergex Renewable Energy (INE.TO), opens new tab that slipped 6.4%.
The tech index (.SPTTTK), opens new tab slumped 2%, hurt by declines in Shopify (SHOP.TO), opens new tab and Constellation Software (CSU.TO), opens new tab.
Investors will also look forward to key domestic employment data due on Friday to gauge the timing of the Bank of Canada's rate cuts.
Separately, Canadian service sector activity slowed for an eighth straight month in January as new business ebbed and cost pressures intensified, but the pace of decline eased from December, S&P Global Canada services PMI data showed on Monday.
Amongst individual stocks, Brookfield Asset Management (BAM.TO), opens new tab lost 1.4% after the company said it had raised $10 billion in the first closing of its second "Brookfield Global Transition Fund (BGTF II)".
Reporting by Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru and Nivedita Balu in Toronto; Editing by Ravi Prakash Kumar and Josie Kao
