After hitting an all-time high last Friday, the Toronto Stock Exchange plummeted to a one-week low Thursday morning and again Friday morning.
By 1:02 pm ET, the TSX index was down 35.33 points on the day.
With oil also down this week, trading 0.24 per cent lower today at US$78.82 per barrel, energy stocks have taken a hit. TSX Energy Stocks (SPTTEN) are down 3.34 per cent today, led by major players such as Enerplus, Crescent Energy, and Cenovus Energy, who all fell nearly 5 per cent today.
European stocks also took a tumble this week as COVID-19 cases continue to surge across the continent, with Austria entering yet another country-wide lockdown and Germany looking to follow suit, according to Reuters.
Despite this rather grim outlook for the Canadian economy, recent data from Statistics Canada indicated that while retail sales were slightly lower (-0.6%) in September, the latest estimates suggest that sales increased 1.0 per cent in October.
Even with lower September numbers, studies showed that retail sales were actually up 2.7 per cent in the third quarter, which Statistics Canada said is “the largest increase since the third quarter of 2020.”
The Canadian dollar continues to hover just below US$0.80 (0.7927 today) and gold is down 0.51 per cent.
Market movers
Several small-cap companies made moves in the market today, including cannabis company HEXO, which announced the resignation of its CEO Sebastien St-Louis. Mr. St-Louis has been replaced by Scott Cooper, who will act as the company’s new president and CEO.
Healthcare company Algernon announced that it had received positive feedback from the United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency on its planned Phase 1/2a DMT Human Stroke study.
Companies announcing capital raises this week included Element 29 Resources, CubicFarm Systems, Radisson Mining, Zentek, and NFI Group.
