Market View

It was a busy week south of border with lackluster earnings from major companies. Canadian retail sales dipped by 0.2% in February from January, smaller than analysts’ forecast of a 0.6% fall. Sales are expected to drop another 1.4% in March. The Canadian dollar was 73.88 cents USD. The U.S. S&P500 ended the week down 0.1%, while the TSX was up 0.6%.

All but two sectors ended the week in green this week. Healthcare rose a whopping 14.6%, while industrials and financials rose 2.6% and 1.8%, respectively. Consumer discretionary gained 1.7%, while technology ended the week up 0.7%. Energy and materials gave up 2.8% and 2.1%, respectively. The most heavily traded shares by volume were B2Gold Corp, Royal Bank of Canada, and Toronto-Dominion Bank.

5 from 5i

Here are five reads we found interesting last week:

• Long bonds are no longer for fools, by John Rekenthaler of Morningstar
• Stocks are real assets, authored by Sonu Varghese of Carson Group
• How boring should banks be? By Liz Hoffman of Semafor
• Living the life(style), by Douglas Boneparth of This is the Top
• Scary economists and bad news, posted by Claudia of Stay-At-Home Macro

Happy Reading & Stay Safe!

Disclosure: The analyst(s) responsible for this report do not have a financial or other interest in securities mentioned.