Canadian Market Pares Early Gains; Bank Stocks In Focus After Results

(RTTNews) - After opening modestly higher and moving further up, the Canadian market pared most of its gains Thursday morning with consumer staples and technology stocks drifting lower on selling pressure.

Shares from communications, financials and energy sectors are among the notable gainers.

In addition to digesting the Canadian GDP data, and U.S. personal income and spending data, investors are also reacting to quarterly earnings updates from major Canadian banks.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is up 3.45 points at 20,119.65 about half an before noon. The index, which advanced to 20,212.87 earlier in the session, dropped to 20,108.82.

Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO) is gaining nearly 3% after the bank reported fourth-quarter earnings of C$4.062 billion, or C$2.90 per share, compared to C$3.809 million, or C$2.74 per share, in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD.TO) is down 1.6%. The bank reported adjusted net income of $3.505 million, or $1.83 per share in the fourth quarter, compared with $4.065 million, or $2.18 per share in the previous year's fourth quarter.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM.TO) is climbing 4.2% after reporting adjusted net income of $1,520 million, or $1.53 per share, for the fourth quarter, compared with $1,308 million, or $1.26 million a year ago.

Consumer staples shares Loblaw Company (L.TO) is down 2.1%. The North West Company (NWC.TO), Jamieson Wellness (JWEL.TO), George Weston (WN.TO) and Metro Inc (MRU.TO) are down 1.2 to 1.6%.

Technology stocks Bitfarms (BITF.TO), Hut 8 Mining (HUT.TO), Coveo Solutions (CVO.TO), Copperleaf Technologies (CPLF.TO), Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD.TO) and BlackBerry (BB.TO) are down 2.3 to 4%.

Communications shares Telus Corp (T.TO) and Quebecor (QBR.B.TO) are up 1.2% and 1%, respectively.

Data from Statistics Canada showed the Canadian GDP contracted by 0.3% in the third quarter of 2023, marking its first decline since the second quarter of 2021 and compared to a revised 0.3% expansion in the previous period.

On annual basis, the Canadian GDP contracted by 1.1% in the third quarter, a sharp contrast from market expectations of a 0.2% expansion.

A separate data from Statistics Canada showed average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees in Canada increased 4% year-on-year to $1,219 in September, edging up from a downwardly revised 3.9% in the prior month.

A report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said the business barometer in Canada declined by 1.5 points to 45.6 in November, marking the third consecutive decrease in optimism.