The ongoing tug-of-war between Canadian stock market bulls and bears intensified on Wednesday, as the U.S. Federal Reserve announced its decision to hold interest rates steady after raising them 10 consecutive times. As a result, the S&P/TSX Composite Index ended the highly volatile session with minor gains of 25 points at 20,015.
In its latest statement, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) stated that keeping rates unchanged at this meeting would allow it to “assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy.”
While shares of technology, industrials, and consumer cyclicals companies zoomed up yesterday, heavy losses in other market sectors like healthcare, energy and utilities trimmed the TSX benchmark’s gains.
Top TSX Composite movers and active stocks
Ballard Power Systems (TSX:BLDP) dived by 12.4% in the last session to settle at $6.23 per share, making it the worst-performing TSX Composite component for the day. This selloff came after the Bank of Montréal downgraded its ratings on BLDP stock from “market perform” to “underperform” and slashed its target price.
Nonetheless, Ballard Power stock is still up more than 8% on a week-to-date basis, as it staged a spectacular rally in a previous couple of sessions after announcing its plan to scale production & reduce costs of next-generation, proprietary graphite bipolar plates.
Canopy Growth, Birchcliff Energy, Tilray Brands, and Richelieu Hardware were also among the bottom performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange yesterday, as they slipped by more than 4% each.
On the positive side, Lundin Mining and Capstone Copper gained at least 5.2% each, making them the top-performing TSX stocks for the day.
Based on their daily trade volume, Suncor Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, Peyto Exploration & Development, and Baytex Energy were the most heavily traded stocks on the exchange.
TSX today
Precious metals prices were largely bearish early Thursday morning, which could pressure TSX mining stocks at the open today. On the economic releases front, Canadian investors may want to watch the latest monthly retail sales, manufacturing, and weekly jobless claims data from the U.S. market this morning.
While the Fed has held interest rates steady for now, its chair Jerome Powell, during his press conference, highlighted that nearly all FOMC “participants expect that it will be appropriate to raise interest rates somewhat further by the end of the year.” Given that, I expect stocks to remain volatile in the near term, as investors assess the potential impact of upcoming rate hikes on the economy.
Market movers on the TSX today
