Canadian stocks went sideways for a second consecutive session on Thursday, as investors continued to assess the Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem’s recent comments about the monetary policy and economic outlook. At the same time, the U.S. market remained closed for Thanksgiving Day. The S&P/TSX Composite Index ended the choppy session at 20,117, with a minor three-point increase from its previous closing.
Even as shares of most healthcare and industrial companies rallied, weakness in other market sectors, such as consumer noncyclical and metal mining, restricted the TSX benchmark’s gains.
Top TSX Composite movers and active stocks
Cargojet, NexGen Energy, Precision Drilling, and Torex Gold Resources were the top-performing TSX stocks in the last session, as they surged by more than 2% each.
In a noteworthy development related to Brookfield Asset Management’s (TSX:BAM) proposed acquisition of Origin Energy, AustralianSuper said in a press release that “it will reject the last-minute attempts by the Brookfield and EIG-backed consortium to buy more time in its efforts to acquire Origin Energy.”
The Melbourne-based superannuation fund AustralianSuper, which has over 16% stake in Origin Energy, has long argued that Brookfield’s takeover proposal is way below its estimate of Origin’s long-term value. Despite AustralianSuper’s efforts to block Brookfield’s Origin acquisition deal, BAM stock has jumped more than 18% in November so far amid the broader market recovery.
Empire Company and Methanex fell more than 2% each yesterday, making them among the bottom performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Based on their daily trade volume, Manulife Financial, Sun Life Financial, Baytex Energy, Tamarack Valley Energy, and Royal Bank of Canada were the five most active stocks on the exchange.
TSX today
Most commodity prices, except natural gas, were trading with minor gains early Friday morning, which could help the resource-heavy TSX index remain positive at the open today. Besides the services purchasing managers index data from the United States, Canadian investors will closely monitor the important domestic budget balance and retail sales data this morning.
Overall, I expect the TSX benchmark to remain choppy for the third consecutive session as the U.S. stock market will close early at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time on November 24.
Market movers on the TSX today
