Stocks were jumping on Bay Street and Wall Street today as markets rallied in a big way.
After a flat Monday, Canada’s stock market climbed 170 points, led by the key financials sector as bank stocks rose in anticipation of next week’s expected interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada.
With economic sentiment rising on a forecast of positive future sales growth among Canadian businesses, financials moved up just over one percent.
Nine of the TSX’s 11 major sectors were firmly in the green, with health care and gold being the only lags.
Health care fell 3.4 percent after cannabis stocks took a nosedive, the day before recreational marijuana is legalized across Canada.
Led by Aurora Cannabis, five of the six most actively traded stocks on the index were pot stocks, and all traded lower.
The sell-off comes a day after Aurora’s and Canopy’s share prices hit record highs.
In New York, the Dow rocketed 547 points, sparked by strong corporate earnings from some of the U.S.’s largest companies including United Health and Johnson & Johnson.
The Nasdaq surged, spiking 214 points with Apple, Alphabet, Netflix, Microsoft, and Amazon all jumping between 2.4 and 3.9 percent.
International demand concerns slightly offset a surplus of U.S. crude inventories as oil moved 47 cents higher to $72.25 US a barrel. Looming American sanctions on Iran coupled with tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is creating concerns over supply coming from the Middle East.
The loonie rose more than a quarter of a cent, strengthening 34/100ths of a cent to $0.7730 US, while gold dropped $3.30 to $1,224 an ounce as investors moved away from the safety of the yellow metal.
