Although they tried, the gold miners couldn’t drive the Canadian market to another down day on Tuesday. The S&P/TSX Composite gained about 115 points to finish the day up 0.96%.
Even though the spot price of gold made a slight recovery, gaining 1.6%, the miners once again faced significant selling pressure. Barrick Gold (TSX:ABX,NYSE:ABX) was the worst of the large caps, checking in with another decline greater than 5%.
Counteracting the sector that seemingly everybody loves to hate was a collection of blue chip financial names. All of the banks had a good day with the Bank of Nova Scotia (TSX:BNS,NYSE:BNS) and TD Bank (TSX:TD,NYSE:TD) making significant contributions to the index with their returns of 1.4% and 1.3% respectively.
Sunlife (TSX:SLF,NYSE:SLF) and Brookfield Asset Management (TSX:BAM.A,NYSE:BAM), with respective returns of 3.1% and 2.3%, also chipped in to fight the negative strain brought on by the golds.
Aside from gold stocks, resources had a decent day as well. First Quantum (TSX:FM) had a nice bounce, up over 9%, and heavy weight Suncor Energy (TSX:SU,NYSE:SU) was in fact the top contributor to the Canadian market, up a bit more than 3%.
Even Blackberry (TSX:BB,NASDAQ:BBRY) joined in on the fun. The stock turned in a gain of 1.4% thanks to a favourable analyst report.
Foolish Takeaway
Without participation from the gold sector, it will be a challenge for the rest of the Canadian market to really make any headway. However, the bounce that occurred today was a welcome respite from the negative spiral that we had seemingly entered.
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Fool contributor Iain Butler owns shares of Barrick Gold. The Motley Fool has no positions in the stocks mentioned above.
