The Canadian stock market continued to rise for the third consecutive session on Friday as investors’ high expectations from the upcoming corporate earnings season helped them shake off worries about the ongoing geopolitical tensions. The S&P/TSX Composite Index inched up by 99 points, or 0.5%, in the session to settle at 21,807 but ended the second consecutive week in the red territory.
While all key market sectors rallied during the day, solid intraday gains in financial, healthcare, and energy stocks mainly guided the TSX benchmark upward.
Top TSX Composite movers and active stocks
Osisko Mining, SilverCrest Metals, SSR Mining, and Kinross Gold were the top-performing TSX stocks for the day, as they climbed up by at least 3.8% each.
On the flip side, Celestica and Africa Oil (TSX:AOI) dived by at least 4% each, making them among the day’s bottom performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Based on their daily trade volume, Royal Bank of Canada, Enbridge, Toronto-Dominion Bank, TC Energy, and Ivanhoe Mines were the five most active stocks on the exchange.
TSX today
Most commodity prices, especially precious metals, were trading with heavy losses early Monday morning, pointing to a lower opening for the resource-heavy main TSX index today.
While no major economic releases are due this morning, stocks may still remain volatile as investors await U.S. manufacturing, services, and new home sales data scheduled to be released tomorrow.
Earlier this morning, Africa Oil told investors that it has successfully repurchased 1.23 million of its common shares from April 15 to April 19, 2024, as part of its share-buyback program initiated in December 2023. The transactions were conducted on Canada’s TSX and the Swedish Nasdaq Stockholm, with 455,600 shares bought on the TSX and 770,000 shares on Nasdaq Stockholm. Africa Oil added that it has acquired a total of 11.21 million shares to date under this program, which allows for the buyback of up to 38.65 million shares by December 5, 2024. On a year-to-date basis, Africa Oil stock currently trades with 4.8% losses.
On the corporate events side, the TSX-listed Prairiesky Royalty will announce its first-quarter results after the market closing bell on April 22. Bay Street analysts expect the company to post quarterly earnings of $0.25 per share.
Market movers on the TSX today
