North American markets recovered some of the prior day’s deep losses, continuing the volatility of recent weeks.
There was a pretty solid rebound Thursday overall, said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist for SIA Wealth Management.
“Not only did we see stocks come back but we saw oil come back, which I thought also was encouraging since both of them had been hammered pretty badly in the last week,” he said in an interview.
The December crude contract was up US51¢ at US$67.33 per barrel. That’s still the third-lowest level in two months.
“I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet and I still think there’s going to be bumpy and choppy 13 more weeks but it’s definitely really encouraging to see investors step up and for markets to hang onto their gains.”
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 14.95 points at 14,924.08 after losing 376.04 points on Wednesday. It hit an intraday high of 15,009.91 on 296.8 million shares traded.
The cannabis-heavy health care sector led, gaining 2.8%, followed by the technology and energy sectors.
“It was a good day for technology on this side of the border too, it’s just that it’s not as big in the Canadian market, but we’re definitely benefiting from the same forces that drove up tech stocks in the States,” said Cieszynski.
Gold was one of four sectors that lost ground, along with materials, utilities and telecom.
Financials and real estate were in the middle, gaining less than half a per cent on the day.
Cieszynski said he expected financials could struggle with interest rates on the rise.
“That impacts all the interest-sensitive sectors — financials, real estate, utilities — as all kind of stuck in the same boat at this point.”
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 401.12 points to 24,984.55 after Wednesday’s selloff pushed the market to a loss for the year. The S&P 500 index was up 49.47 points to 2,705.57, while the Nasdaq composite was up 209.93 points or almost 3% to 7,318.34.
Although markets are going through a period of high volatility, they will likely recover later in the year, added Cieszynski.
He noted that corporate results have generally been positive even though some haven’t met expectations.
“It’s not like the wheels are falling off, it’s just that markets got way too far ahead of themselves and needed to come back to earth and that’s what we’ve been seeing, but I do think that the underlying North American economy remains positive.”
The upcoming U.S. midterm elections could cause further uncertainty and contribute to volatility dragging well into November, he added.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of US76.48¢compared with an average of US76.75¢ on Wednesday.
The December gold contract was up US$1.30 at US$1,232.40 an ounce and the December copper contract was down 0.3 of a cent at US$2.75 a pound.