The Canadian stock market continued to slide for a third consecutive session on Friday, as falling commodity prices and significantly weaker-than-expected domestic employment data raised the possibility of a recession. The S&P/TSX Composite Index dived 51 points for the day to settle at 19,892, extending its weekly losses to about 133 points.
Despite an intraday recovery in Canadian tech stocks, big losses in other key market sectors like consumer non-cyclicals, industrials, and mining dragged the index down. With this, the main TSX benchmark has posted losses in six out of the last seven weeks.
Top TSX Composite movers and active stocks
Saputo (TSX:SAP) tanked 11.2% in the last session to $30.93 per share, a day after reporting financial results for the fourth quarter of its fiscal year 2023 (ended in March). During the quarter, the Montréal-headquartered dairy products firm’s sales rose 12.9% year over year to $4.5 billion.
Favourable pricing initiatives and strong international market performance drove Saputo’s adjusted quarterly earnings up by 80.8% from a year ago to $0.47 per share, exceeding analysts’ estimate of $0.42 per share. However, the company expects rising competition and softening U.S. market demand to affect its fiscal year 2024 results. Year to date, SAP stock now trades with 7.7% losses.
Tilray Brands, Osisko Mining, and Cargojet were also among the worst-performing TSX stocks for the day, as they plunged by more than 3% each.
On the positive side, Onex and Ero Copper were among the top performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange, as they inched up by at least 4% each.
Based on their daily trade volume, Canadian Natural Resources, Suncor Energy, Enbridge, and TD Bank continued to be among the most active stocks on the exchange for a second straight session.
TSX today
West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures prices were trading with heavy losses of more than 3.5% early Monday morning, which could pressure the commodity-heavy TSX index at the open today.
While no major economic releases are due on June 12, I expect stocks to still remain highly volatile, as Wall Street awaits the U.S. inflation numbers and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision due later this week.
Market movers on the TSX today
