Equities north of the border with the U.S. more than made up for a deadly week to end January, mostly the result of strength in health-care stocks, and a deaf ear to employment numbers which proved less than sterling.
The S&P/TSX Composite jumped 177.84 points to finish Friday at 21,271.85, for a gain on the week of 530 points, or nearly 2.6%
The Canadian dollar slid 0.47 cents at 78.39 cents U.S.
Health-care stocks specifically starred Aurora Cannabis, vaulting 38 cents, or 7.6%, to $5.39, while rival Tilray took the elevator up 47 cents, or 6.6%, to $7.63.
Tech stocks also showed off a bit, with HUT 8 Mining zooming $1.02, or 14%, to $8.33, while Shopify pumped higher $96.72, or 9.4%, to $1,124.46.
In materials, Turquoise Hill Resources hiked $1.39, or 6.2%, to $23.85, while Lithium Americas jumped $1.54, or 4.8%, to $33.62.
Consumer staples proved the only sector in the red, as Primo Water dried up 40 cents, or 1.9%, to $20.31, while Jamieson Wellness paled 45 cents, or 1.3%, to $35.11.
On the economic picture, the nation’s number crunchers reported employment fell by 200,000 (-1.0%) in January and the unemployment rate rose 0.5 percentage points to 6.5%.
Moreover, Western University’s IVEY School of Business published its Purchasing Managers Index, which registered in January at 50/7, from 45 in December, and also surpassing January 2021’s reading of 48.4.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange flew 15.28 points, or 1.8%, Friday to 854.47. The improvement on the week was 16.1 points, or 1.92%.
Eight of the 12 TSX subgroups were in the green, with health-care vaulting 2.3%, information technology better by 2.1%, and gold up 1.2%.
The four laggards were weighed most by consumer discretionary stocks, tanking 0.6%, real-estate weaker by 0.5%. and consumer staples, off 0.2%.
ON WALLSTREET
The S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite jumped Friday to finish their best week of the year, as continued strength in earnings reports extended the tech-led rebound from the January rout.
The Dow Jones Industrials settled, however, 21.42 points to conclude Friday at 35,089.74. Still, the 30-stock index enjoyed a gain on the week of more than 1%.
The S&P 500 recovered 23.09 points to 4,500.53, transported 1.6% over the last five sessions.
The NASDAQ popped 219.19 points, or 1.6%, to 14,098.01, or nearly 2.4% better than last Friday’s close.
The progress marks the second weekly advances of 2022 for the major averages — which were under pressure last month as worries of higher interest rates dragged down tech names.
Amazon led the S&P’s and NASDAQ’s gains, as it jumped 13.5% on strong quarterly earnings and cloud revenue beats. Snap rocketed up 58.8% the day after reporting earnings. Pinterest rose 11.2%.
Wall Street was coming off a horrid session in which a plunge in Meta shares dragged megacap tech stocks lower. Meta shares suffered their worst day ever on Thursday, dropping 26.4% on the back of disappointing quarterly earnings.
The January jobs report showed a 467,000 gain in payrolls. Economists polled by Dow Jones had expected a minor gain of 150,000, and some economists predicted a large decrease. Economists had cautioned before the report it could be noisy because of an omicron wave hitting while the survey was taking place.
Prices for 10-year Treasurys sagged, hiking yields to 1.92% from Thursday’s 1.83%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices rocketed $1.96 to $92.23 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices were positive $4.50 to $1,808.60 U.S. an ounce.
