Canada’s biggest stock index moved up, boosted by a rise in the price of gold and oil, while indexes south of the border edged down, slowing their recent momentum.
In Toronto, the S&P/TSX composite index finished the day with a gain of 33.89 points to 15,252.20. But the Friday close fell short of its stronger early morning performance, when the index rose slightly above 15,300.
A large part of the gain can be attributed to the resource space, said Craig Jerusalim, a portfolio manager of Canadian equities at CIBC Asset Management.
The gold sector was among the highest performing of those on the TSX, edged out by utilities and real estate. Gold stocks advanced an average of nearly 0.75% as the price of the precious metal moved up.
The February gold contract rose US$7.60 to US$1,137.40 an ounce, recouping some of its US$33.90 loss on Thursday after being dragged down by a strengthening U.S. dollar.
Bullion prices have fallen by US$136.10 since Nov. 9, after Americans voted for billionaire Donald Trump to be the country’s next leader.
The strength in the price of oil also helped boost the Toronto index, said Jerusalim.
The January crude contract advanced US$1.00 to US$51.90 per barrel, while the more heavily-traded February contract added US98¢ to US$52.95 per barrel.
On Wall Street, markets didn’t perform as well. The Dow Jones industrial average shed 8.83 points to 19,843.41, the S&P 500 fell 3.96 points to 2,258.07, and the Nasdaq composite retreated 19.69 points to 5,437.16.
Jerusalim said the New York index losses are a sign the market is taking a breather after quite a strong rally following president-elect Trump’s election victory.
The markets responded positively to Trump’s surprise win on hopes that the policies of his administration will be a boost for certain industries, like the banks. It’s anticipated that he may deregulate the banking industry after he takes over the White House on Jan. 20.
The U.S. index retreats are typical after a strong sentiment shift in one direction, Jerusalim noted. All three indexes have recently hit record highs for multiple days in a row.
“Sentiment shifts have been fast, furious and erratic, and we’ve seen the shifts happening so quickly from extreme pessimism to likely an over-optimistic scenario recently,” Jerusalim said.
He added that’s been particularly true of a number of sectors, including the financial and resource focused ones.
The Canadian dollar, which is usually closely tied to movement in the price of oil, was relatively flat. It inched up US0.02¢ to US74.94¢.
Elsewhere in commodities, January natural gas fell US1.9¢ to about US$3.42 per mmBTU and March copper contracts were down US3.6¢ at US$2.56 a pound.