Market View

Canada’s labour market started off its best start since 1981, a bright spot for an economy. Canadian economy added 55.9k jobs in February. Bank of Canada held key rate unchanged at 1.75%. China stocks suffered their worst day in five months, after weak trade data from China. European Central Bank postponed interest rate hikes to 2020, lowered its GDP forecast and launched new stimulus measures. The Canadian dollar was 74.35 cents. U.S. S&P500 was down 0.4% this week and TSX ended the week flat.

It was a mixed bag for all subgroups this week. Energy was down 5.8%, Consumer discretionary slipped by 2.5%, and technology by 1.5%. Real estate was up 1.6%, utilities jumped by 1.3% and telecommunications by 1.1%. MEG Energy reported a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss, attributed to lower bitumen crude prices because of transportation bottlenecks. Yamana Gold, Glencore, and Goldcorp Inc said they signed an agreement to develop Yamana’s Agua Rica gold and copper mine in Argentina. This would be done using the infrastructure and facilities of the three companies. The most heavily traded shares by volume were Aurora, Lightspeed, and Encana.

5 from 5i

Here are five reads we found interesting last week:

-Bears in Bulls

-Why even the noise shakes investors

-New investor and index funds

-The psychology of IPOs

-Mortgage prepayments and are they worth it

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