Stocks in Canada’s largest centre opened higher on Friday, aided by gains in technology shares, but tracked its worst week since the pandemic-driven market rout in March 2020.
The S&P/TSX gained 166.27 points to begin the week’s last session at 19,170.33.
The Canadian dollar slid 0.49 cents to 76.71 cents U.S.
Bausch Health Companies is suspending plans for the initial public offering of its unit Solta Medical due to challenging market conditions.
Shares in Bausch hiked 29 cents, or 3.1%, to $9.69.
RBC cut the target price on TELUS Corp to $36.00 from $37.00. TELUS gained $1.04, or 3.8%, to $28.66.
TD Securities cut the target price on Airboss of America to $34.00 from $40.00. Airboss shares galloped 68 cents, or 4.5%, to $15.78.
On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported Canadian investors purchased a record $29.2 billion of foreign securities in April, after a $46.2 billion divestment in the first quarter of 2022.
At the same time, the agency says, foreign acquisitions of Canadian securities totaled $22.2 billion, led by investment in new bonds denominated in foreign currencies.
Elsewhere, StatsCan’s Industrial Product Price Index rose by 1.7% month over month in May and by 15.0% compared with May of last year.
The agency’s Raw Materials Price Index increased 2.5% on a monthly basis in May, posting a 37.4% year-over-year increase.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange improved 2.68 points to 642.23.
All but one of the 12 TSX subgroups were in the green during the first hour of trade, as health-care sprinted 2.3%, while real-estate and information technology each muscled 1.9% higher.
Only energy missed the party, sliding 0.2%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks rose on Friday as Wall Street attempted to find its footing after a brutal week of selling.
The Dow Jones Industrials increased 42.31 points, to 29,969.38.
The Dow briefly bounced above the 30,000-point mark after falling below that level on Thursday for the first time since January 2021. The 30-stock average is down 4.5% for the week, on track for its 11th negative week in 12.
The S&P 500 grew 18.61 points to 3,685.38. The S&P 500 is down about 6% and could be headed for its worst weekly performance since March 2020. All 11 of its sectors are at least 15% below their recent highs.
The NASDAQ Composite recovered 129.08 points, or 1.2%, to 10,775.18. The tech-heavy index is down 5.2% for the week.
Beaten-up tech shares staged a rally on Friday, with shares of Tesla and Netflix up 3% and 2%, respectively. Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft added about 1% each. Travel stocks Airbnb, Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Line added about 3% each.
The moves come as investors are increasingly worried about a potential economic slowdown. Several key pieces of economic data fell short of forecasts this week, ranging from May retail sales to housing starts. Additionally, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by the most since 1994.
Market volatility could be heightened Friday thanks to “quadruple witching.” This refers to the simultaneous expiration of stock index futures, single-stock futures, stock options and stock index options.
This event happens once a quarter and typically leads to a surge in trading volume, making for choppy trading action as traders close out positions.
Treasury prices fell back a bit, raising yields to 3.27% from Thursday’s 3.25%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices slid $3.20 to $114.39 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices faltered $6.30 to $1,843.60 U.S. an ounce.