The Canadian stock market ended its six-day-long winning streak on Wednesday with investors’ mixed reaction to the contents of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) June meeting minutes. The S&P/TSX Composite Index declined by 101 points, or 0.5%, to settle at 20,104.
Despite minor gains in some real estate stocks, most other key market sectors like healthcare, mining, and energy witnessed heavy losses, dragging the TSX benchmark down.
On the one hand, the FOMC’s June meeting minutes revealed that all committee members agreed that “maintaining a restrictive stance for monetary policy would be appropriate” to tame the rate of inflation. On the other hand, many members of the Fed’s committee were in favour of “further moderation in the pace of policy firming.”
Top TSX Composite movers and active stocks
Osisko Gold Royalties (TSX: OR) dived 9.8% to $18.44 per share, making it the worst-performing TSX stock for the day. Besides an intraday drop in gold prices, these big losses in OR stock came after the Montréal-headquartered precious metals royalty firm announced the exit of its chief executive officer (CEO) and president Sandeep Singh, effective immediately.
Until Osisko Gold’s board finds a new permanent president and CEO, Paul Martin will serve as the company’s interim CEO. The recent declines trimmed OR stock’s year-to-date gains to 13%.
Equinox Gold, BlackBerry, and Energy Fuels were also among the bottom performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange, as they plunged by at least 4.5% each.
On the positive side, Algoma Steel and Crombie Real Estate Investment Trust climbed at least 3% each, making them the top-performing TSX stocks for the day.
Shares of Quebecor (TSX: QBR.B) also rose 2.4% to $33.71 per share after announcing its decision to withdraw “all advertising by its subsidiaries and business units from Facebook and Instagram.” The Canadian telecom and entertainment company’s this move came in view of Meta’s recent decision to block news content on its platforms in Canada. Year to date, Quebecor stock is now up 11.6%.
Based on their daily trade volume, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, TC Energy, and Enbridge were the most active Canadian stocks.
TSX today
The main TSX index is likely to remain flat today as commodity prices were largely mixed early Thursday morning.
Besides the domestic purchasing managers index (PMI), Canadian investors will closely watch several important economic releases from the United States this morning, including the monthly non-farm employment change, jobless claims, services PMI, non-manufacturing PMI, and job openings data. Besides that, TSX energy investors may also want to keep an eye on the weekly U.S. crude oil stockpiles data today.
On the corporate events side, Richelieu Hardware is expected to announce its latest quarterly financial results on July 6. Bay Street analysts expect the Canadian spatiality hardware firm to report net earnings of $0.55 per share for the May 2023 quarter with $467.8 million in revenue.
Market movers on the TSX today
