Canadian Market Retreats After Opening Higher; Bank Stocks Rise

(RTTNews) - After opening slightly up, the Canadian market retreated and slipped into negative territory Tuesday morning, weighed down by losses in materials and energy sectors as weak commodity prices triggered some heavy selling at several counters.

Financials stocks are finding some support on Bank of Nova Scotia's good results, and announcement from Laurentian Bank that it has agreed to sell its retail and SME banking businesses to National Bank of Canada.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index, which dropped to 30,908.13 earlier in the session, was down 128.06 points or 0.41% at 30,973.72 a few minutes past noon.

Bank of Nova Scotia gained nearly 2%. The bank reported fourth quarter net income of $2,206 million, compared to $1,689 million in the year-ago quarter. Earnings per share rose to $1.65 in the fourth quarter of its current financial year, compared to $1.22 a year ago.

Laurentian Bank of Canada soared more than 18%. The bank said today that it has agreed to sell its retail and SME banking businesses to National Bank of Canada. The move is part of an expanded execution of its 2024 Strategic Plan, aimed at focusing on commercial real estate lending, inventory and equipment financing, intermediary services and capital markets. National Bank of Canada gained about 1.5%.

Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce climbed up 1.3% and 1%, respectively.

The Materials Capped Index dropped more than 3%. Endeavour Silver Corp lost about 6.5%. New Gold, Lundin Gold, Capstone Mining, Pan American Silver Corp., Ero Copper, Fortuna Mines and Triple Flag Precious Metals Corp lost 4 to 5%.

The Energy Capped Index drifted lower by about 1.3%. Advantage Oil & Gas, Enerflex, Imperial Oil, Tourmaline Oil Corp., Birchcliff Energy, Suncor Energy, Vermilion Energy and Canadian Natural Resources fell 1.4 to 2.5%.

AltaGas Ltd. shares were up marginally after the company said that it expects normalized EPS of $2.20-$2.45 for 2026, representing roughly 6% year-over-year growth, while normalized EBITDA is projected at $1.925 billion-$2.025 billion, up about 8% from 2025.

Technology stocks Shopify In., and Tecsys gained 4.7% and 3.2%, respectively. BlackBerry, Docebo, Sylogist, Enghouse Systems and Dye & Durham also moved notably higher.