The markets were relatively quiet on Monday, as there wasn’t a whole lot of movement on either the Canadian or U.S. exchanges. A lack of significant news meant that most of the movement on the day was driven mainly by regular volatility. By midday, the TSX was down by around 50 points, as it fell below 16,500.
Below is a quick summary of the day’s events on the Canadian market as of around noon:
| Index | Percent Change | Point Change |
| TSX | -0.29% | -47.86 |
Energy stocks post biggest increases
One of the big positives of the day was the energy sector, where many oil and gas stocks were up more than 5% by noon. Oil prices were up, as the big news out of Saudi Arabia was that the country’s new energy minister would follow with the country’s previous policy, indicating that production cuts will remain intact.
Under the current OPEC agreement, 1.2 million of barrels per day will be cut until March of next year.
Production cuts are not new territory for the industry, and they’ve unfortunately done little to keep oil prices up. The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) reached US$58 on Monday, rising more than a dollar during the day.
Oil prices have been volatile during the past year, with WTI reaching over US$75 back in October before crashing down to below US$43 before the end of 2018. At the current rate, it’s likely production cuts will remain intact beyond the current end date.
However, anytime there’s a discussion about keeping production down, it usually generates some positivity from the markets. There were at least a handful of oil and gas stocks that were up over 5% today, including Crescent Point Energy and Encana. Gran Tierra Energy had the highest gains, rising more than 10% during the day.
OPEC is scheduled to have a meeting on Thursday, which could put energy stocks back in the spotlight later this week.
Other segments in the red
Outside of energy, there wasn’t a whole lot of green on the day, as there were modest increases posted by financials and metals and mining, but all others were down in the afternoon. Marijuana stocks continued to struggle after news last week that CannTrust had found itself in more hot water surrounding mislabeling of products and using seeds from the black market.
Some of the biggest declines on the day came from two of the country’s top tech stocks — Shopify and Lightspeed — both of which were down more than 5% on the day, with the latter being close to an 8% decline by the afternoon. However, there were no significant news-related items to have weighed down the stocks.
S&P/TSX 60 Changes
Last week, it was announced that there would be some changes to the S&P/TSX 60. Prior to trading on September 23, Husky Energy will be removed from the index while Kirkland Lake Gold will be added. The news was announced after the markets closed on Friday. However, it had a minimal impact on the stocks as Husky was actually up 1%, while Kirkland’s share price was flat.
