The Canadian stock market continued to trade on a slightly positive note on Thursday, supported by mostly positive corporate results and a cooler-than-expected U.S. consumer inflation report. The S&P/TSX Composite Index rose 68 points, or 0.3%, in the last session to settle at 20,343, its highest closing level in more than a week.
Despite continued losses in healthcare and metal mining stocks, rallies in other main market sectors like technology, consumer noncyclical, and financials took the TSX benchmark higher.
Top TSX Composite movers and active stocks
Primo Water (TSX: PRMW) climbed 9.3% yesterday to $20.36 per share after announcing its strong second-quarter results. In the quarter ended in June 2023, the Florida-headquartered water solutions company’s sales increased by 3.8% year over year to $593.3 million with the help of solid performance of its water direct, water exchange, and water refill segments.
To add optimism, better route density, network efficiencies, and optimization drove its adjusted quarterly earnings up by 14.3% from a year ago to $0.24 per share, beating analysts’ expectations of $0.20 per share. Despite this rally, however, PRMW stock still trades with 3.1% year-to-date losses.
SilverCrest Metals, Canada Goose, and Brookfield Corp were also among the top performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange, as they soared by more than 5% each.
On the flip side, Fortuna Silver Mines, Stelco, Tilray Brands, and Canadian Tire fell at least 4.5% each, making them the worst-performing TSX Composite components for the day.
Based on their daily trade volume, Suncor Energy, Manulife Financial, B2Gold, and Enbridge stood out as the most heavily traded stocks on the exchange.
TSX today
Commodity prices across the board were largely mixed early Friday morning, pointing to a flat open for the resource-heavy main TSX index at the open today. While no key domestic economic releases are due, Canadian investors may want to keep a close eye on the monthly wholesale inflation data from the United States this morning.
On the corporate events side, TSX-listed companies Emera, Air Canada, NorthWest Healthcare Properties REIT, and Constellation Software are expected to announce their latest quarterly results on August 11.
Market movers on the TSX today
