Market View

Upbeat quarterly results south of the border sent US indices off to new record highs. Canada’s real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.4% in February, following a 0.7% increase in January, marking the 10^th consecutive monthly increase since March and April 2020 lows. Further lockdowns in India and Brazil sent oil prices down. The US dollar was up while gold slipped. The Canadian dollar was 81.36. U.S. S&P500 ended the week flat, while the TSX ended the week down 0.2%.

Energy rose the highest this week by nearly 4.8%, followed by a gain in healthcare of 2.7%. Technology added 1.9%, while financials ended the week flat. Materials declined by 3.7%, while utilities slipped 1.6%. Consumer discretionary and consumer staples gave away 1.3%, each. The most heavily traded shares by volume were Tetra Bio-Pharma, Mega Uranium, and Baytex Energy.

5 from 5i

Here are five reads we found interesting last week:

• Is ESG outperformance just an illusion? By Julie Segal of Institutional Investor
• The US corporate tax burden: facts and fiction, by Aswath Damodaran on his Musings on Market blog
• The bigger short, by Jon Schwarz and Ryan Grim of the Intercept
• Apple’s M1 positioning mocks the entire x86 business model, authored by Joel Hruska of Extreme Tech
• Why dead trees are ‘the hottest commodity on the planet’, written by Robinson Meyer of the Atlantic

Happy Reading & Stay Safe!

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Disclosure: Please note that the author does not hold a financial or other interest in stocks or funds mentioned.