The stock market in Canada remained positive for the fifth consecutive session on Tuesday as investors continued to closely monitor the ongoing geopolitical unrest in West Asia and the Middle East. After climbing close to its all-time highs in intraday trading, the S&P/TSX Composite Index gave up most of its gains later to settle with a minor 31-point increase at 22,291.
On the one hand, sectors like healthcare and real estate traded on a bearish note. On the other hand, healthy gains in most commodity-linked stocks took the TSX benchmark higher.
Top TSX Composite movers and active stocks
Shares of Finning International (TSX:FTT) climbed by 3.5% to $42.23 per share a day after announcing its first-quarter results and a 10% increase in its dividends. In the March quarter, the Vancouver-based industrial company’s total revenue rose around 9% year over year to $2.6 billion due mainly to higher equipment sales.
Although Finning’s adjusted quarterly earnings of $0.84 per share missed Street analysts’ expectations by a narrow margin, higher dividends and continued strength in its new equipment orders could be primary reasons why its share prices surged after the earnings event. FTT stock is now up 10.2% on a year-to-date basis and offers an annualized dividend yield of 2.7%.
Energy Fuels, Nutrien, and Celestica were also among the day’s top performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange as they inched up by at least 2.5% each.
On the flip side, Kinaxis and BlackBerry slipped by at least 3.9% each, making them the worst-performing TSX stocks for the day.
Based on their daily trade volume, Enbridge, TD Bank, Manulife Financial, Royal Bank of Canada, and Suncor Energy were the five most active stocks on the exchange.
TSX today
Commodity prices became increasingly volatile early Wednesday morning as Israel’s latest strikes on Rafah in Palestine amid the ongoing cease-fire efforts kept investors on edge. While no major domestic economic releases are due, Canadian investors may want to keep an eye on the weekly crude oil stockpile data from the United States this morning.
On the corporate events side, many large TSX-listed companies, including Shopify, Brookfield Asset Management, Sprott, Stella-Jones, Torex Gold, Crombie REIT, Canadian Apartment Properties REIT, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty, Equinox Gold, WSP Global, Pan American Silver, Granite REIT, Power Corporation of Canada, Stantec, Manulife Financial, Kinaxis, SSR Mining, Nutrien, Stelco, SmartCentres REIT, and CCL Industries, will announce their latest quarterly results on May 8.
Market movers on the TSX today
