A rise in oil prices and energy stocks was just enough to steer Canada’s stock exchange into positive territory today.
On a rollercoaster day on Bay Street, the TSX managed to inch up one point in late day trading.
The exchange was led into the green by gains in the index’s heavyweight energy sector which climbed one percent, mirroring a rise in oil.
After falling more than seven percent on Tuesday, oil rebounded today as OPEC and its allies look at cutting supply to slow the sharp downturn in prices. Oil pulled back as the day wore on but still moved up 29 cents to $55.98 US a barrel.
Holding the TSX down was drops in cannabis stocks and an industrial giant.
Bombardier continues to swoon, losing 2.2 percent despite upbeat comments from its CEO. Investors are still chewing on last week’s news of the Canadian aerospace company laying off more than 5,000 workers to cut costs.
The second most actively traded company on the index, Bombardier had plenty of company in the red.
Health care was the biggest drag on the TSX, tumbling five percent after Aurora Cannabis and Tilray reported quarterly net losses. This sparked a sell-off of pot stocks with Aurora, Aphria, and Canopy Growth falling between 7.2 and 11.3 percent.
In New York, the Dow was off by 205 points with broad based losses in the tech, industrials and financials sectors.
Apple led the losses on Wall Street. According to CNBC, the tech giant predicted a five percent decline in iPhone sales for 2019, and its stock has lost 13 percent this month.
The world’s most valuable publicly traded company, Apple was down another 2.8 percent today.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq also struggled to gain momentum and fell 64 points.
Gold jumped, gaining $9.90 to $1,211 an ounce while the loonie edged down 2/100ths of a cent to $0.7552 US.
