By Ketki Saxena
Investing.com -- The TSX rose to a six week high today, in a day of low trade volumes with US markets closed for the Martin Luther King holiday. Investor sentiment remained robust after last week’s surprise cooldown in US consumer prices and expectations for a less hawkish Fed in Feb.
Canadian investors will be awaiting domestic CPI data tomorrow, expected by economists to ease to 6.4% in December from 6.8% in November.
Crude prices meanwhile capped further gains on the commodity heavy Canadian index, ahead of forecasts from the OPEC and the IEA expected this week.
The Biggest Stories on Bay Street
Clearco, a fintech company based on lending money to people and companies based on revenue rather than asset, is planning another round of layoffs, planning to cut its workforce by another 25%, after an initial round of layoffs six months go. Clearco will replace the company’s co-founder Michele Romanow as CEO with Andrew Curtis, who has been working as an advisor with the company for the past 6 months.
Canadian Stocks Moving Markets Today
Top Gainers:
- Blackberry
- Dundee Precious Metals
- Dye & Durham
Top Losers:
- Mullen Group
- Cogeco (TSX:CGO) Communications
- Lundin Mining
In Canadian Economics
The Canadian Real Estate Association announced that it expects home sale activity to fall 1% in 2022, while prices are expected to fall nearly 6% over the year. In 2023, CREA expects home sales to rise by 10.2%, and average home price to gain 3.5% to $685,056. The actual national average home price in December was $626,318, down 12% from December 2021.
The Bank of Canada’s business and consumer surveys for the fourth quarter noted that two thirds of businesses expect a recession in the next 12 months, but half of business expect to add employees or fill vacant positions in that time period. Meanwhile, 72% of consumers expect a recession, and are cutting back on spending as inflation and interest rates pinch pockets.
Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales were flat at $72.3 billion in November. In volume terms, overall sales edged up 0.1 per cent in November.