Market View

Major North American indices saw a sharp rise mid-week following Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaling that the central bank will temper its pace of interest rate hikes. He said smaller interest rate hikes could start as soon as this month. The Canadian dollar was 74.18 cents USD.  The U.S. S&P500 was up 1.2%, while the TSX ended the week up 1.0%.

All sectors were up this week. Healthcare rose the highest by 11.4%, followed by technology at 5.7%, and materials at 3.5%. Industrials and consumer discretionary rose by 2.0%, each while financials ended the week flat. The most heavily traded shares by volume were Canadian Natural Resources, Suncor Energy, and Canopy Growth Corporation.

5 from 5i

Here are five reads we found interesting last week:

• The donut effect: How COVID-19 shapes real estate, authored by Arjun Ramani and Nicholas Bloom of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
• The worst bond market ever, written by John Rekenthaler of Morningstar
• Are you addicted to Investment Porn? Published on the Onveston Letter
• How VCs can avoid being tricked by obvious frauds, a guest post by Rohit Krishnan on Noaphinion
• How allocators can avoid ‘Secondhand Smoke’ from illiquid investments, by Hannah Zhang of Institutional Investor

Happy Reading & Stay Safe!

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