Canada's main stock index rose on Friday and was on track for its best weekly performance since late December, with energy shares leading the gains as crude prices rose to multi-year highs.
The S&P/TSX Composite jumped 146.94 points to pause for lunch Friday at 21,240.95.
The Canadian dollar slid 0.5 cents at 78.37 cents U.S.
Tilray led health-care gainers, increasing 39 cents, or 5.5%, to $7.55, while Canopy Growth grabbed 46 cents, or 4.8%, to $10.06.
Among tech issues, HUT 8 Mining tacked on 89 cents, or 12.2%, to $8.21, while Shopify jumped $77.37, or 7.5%, to $1,105.11
Consumer discretionary stocks went in the opposite direction, with Magna International trailing $1.74, or 1.7%, to $100.58, while Linamar docked 62 cents to $69.04.
In real-estate, Altus Group ducked $5.17, or 9.1%, to $51.87, while Tricon Capital doffed 25 cents to $18.74.
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 14.18 points, or 1.7%, to 853.37.
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 Dow Jones Industrial Average fell on Friday after an unexpected surge in jobs last month spiked bond yields and reaffirmed to investors the Federal Reserve would continue with its plan to raise interest rates as soon as March.
The 30-stock index settled 81.56 points by noon EST to 35,029.60.
The S&P 500 recovered 10.68 points to 4,488.12
The NASDAQ jumped 147.27 points midday, or 1.1%, to 14,026.09.
For the week, the Dow picked up 0.4%, and S&P was ahead 0.7%. The NASDAQ has gained 1.2% week-to-date. If these gains hold, they would mark 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.
To be sure, continued strength in earnings mitigated some of the losses in the Dow and S&P 500 and lifted the NASDAQ. Amazon jumped 12% on Friday, while Snap rocketed up around 47% the day after reporting earnings. Pinterest rose about 4%.
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 hiked $2.45 to $92.72 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices were positive $2.90 to $1,807.00 U.S. an ounce.
