Canada’s main stock index rebounded on Friday on the back of gains in energy and technology stocks, but was set to post its seventh consecutive weekly drop.
At 9:47 a.m. ET, the Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was up 268.42 points, or 1.36%, at 19,967.47 and was set to snap its six-day losing streak.
The technology sector rose 4.3%, tracking gains in U.S. tech-heavy Nasdaq index. Shopify Inc, up 10.6%, also supported the sub-index.
The energy sector climbed 3%, supported by a rebound in crude prices.
“We’ve got a bit of optimism this morning as we come in and it feels like things are calmer. Oil’s up 3%, so it feels like we might have a bit of a short cover bounce today, but it’s really going be all about the close and see if we can hold it into the weekend,” said Gregory Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments.
Healthcare stocks gained 3%, supported by pot producers Canopy Growth, Cronos Group, Aurora Cannabis up between 4.2% and 5.7%.
The benchmark index, down 3.3% this week, was set to record its seventh consecutive week in losses, hurt by recent sell-off in equity markets on concerns around an aggressive policy tightening by central banks to curb inflation.
“TSX had been hanging in a lot better than other global markets. What we saw is that people finally started selling their winners to fund problems in other parts of their portfolios,” added Taylor.
The materials sector, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, added 0.7%, while the heavy-weight financials sector gained 0.9%
Investors awaited Canada’s inflation report for April due next Wednesday, while strategists say the Bank of Canada is likely to be among the first of the major central banks to lift interest rates to a more normal setting even as worries persist about record-high levels of household debt.
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