The struggle between market bulls and bears continued on Tuesday after the release of mixed U.S. retail sales and cooler-than-expected domestic consumer inflation data, as stock investors speculated about the Federal Reserve’s next move on interest rates. Despite climbing by as much as 99 points in intraday trading, the S&P/TSX Composite Index ended the volatile session with a 24-point decline, closing at 23,678, as profit-taking seemingly pulled the index lower.
Although shares of healthcare and technology companies witnessed renewed buying during the session, heavy losses in other key market sectors, such as consumer noncyclical, industrials, and real estate, pressured the TSX index.
Top TSX Composite movers and active stocks
Aya Gold & Silver, Loblaw Companies, New Gold, and Canadian Apartment Properties REIT were the worst-performing TSX stocks for the day, with each sliding by at least 2.9%.
In contrast, Canfor, Bombardier, ATS, and Interfor inched up by at least 4.6% each, making them the day’s top performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Shares of BlackBerry (TSX: BB) also traded positively yesterday after announcing the expansion of its automotive software portfolio with the release of a new Portable Operating System Interface-compliant filesystem, known as QNX Filesystem for Safety (QFS).
BlackBerry’s latest offering provides real-time integrity checks to ensure that critical files, which are used in collision avoidance or object detection systems, remain uncorrupted. The company claims this new filesystem is likely to boost the confidence of embedded software developers by detecting and addressing data corruption before it impacts vehicle safety. Despite climbing by more than 4% so far in September, BB stock is still down by nearly 30% on a year-to-date basis.
Based on the exchange’s daily trade volume, Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus Energy, Bank of Nova Scotia, Suncor Energy, and Toronto-Dominion Bank were the five most active Canadian stocks.
TSX today
Commodity prices were largely mixed early Wednesday morning, pointing to a flat opening for the resource-heavy main TSX index today.
While no domestic economic releases are due this morning, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, press conference, and economic projections will give further direction to stocks in the afternoon as investors eagerly await further clues on the U.S. central bank’s approach to interest rates. Considering that, TSX investors might want to brace for potential market volatility in today’s trading.
Market movers on the TSX today
