The stock market in Canada turned positive Friday, as investors’ high expectations from the upcoming earnings season led to renewed buying in growth stocks. The S&P/TSX Composite Index climbed 162 points, or 0.8%, in the last session to settle at 20,503.
Continued strength in commodity prices drove the shares of Canadian metal mining and energy companies higher. Besides that, big gains in other key TSX sectors, like healthcare and technology, lifted the index higher, despite weaker-than-expected Canadian retail sales data. With this, the market benchmark ended the third week of 2023 with 0.7% advances, extending the January rally to 5.8%.
Top TSX movers and active stocks
Interfor, Shopify, Energy Fuels, Dye & Durham, and goeasy were the top-performing TSX stocks on January 20, as they inched up by at least 5% each.
On the flip side, shares of Saputo, Northland Power, and First Majestic Silver fell by at least 2% each, making them the bottom performers for the day on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Based on their daily trade volume, Enbridge, BlackBerry, Royal Bank of Canada, and ECN Capital were the most active stocks on the Canadian exchange.
TSX today
West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures prices were extending their last week’s gains early Monday morning. In contrast, precious metals prices were sliding. Given these mixed signals from the commodities market, I expect the main TSX index to remain flat at the open today.
While no key economic releases are due on Monday and Tuesday, Canadian stocks still may remain volatile, as investors look forward to the Bank of Canada’s upcoming interest rate decision and the U.S. quarterly gross domestic product numbers due later this week.
On the corporate events front, Canadian companies Canadian National Railway, Metro, Celestica, and NovaGold Resources will announce their results this week.
Market movers on the TSX today
Daily volume leaders
