Canadian stocks remained highly volatile on Wednesday following the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to maintain the current federal funds rate, seemingly awaiting an optimal time to begin rate cuts. Despite rising by as much as 197 points in intraday trading, the S&P/TSX Composite Index ended the volatile session with a minor 14-point gain at 21,729 as the Fed’s latest update and mixed corporate earnings kept investors on edge.
Most cannabis stocks, which soared in the previous session due to news about the U.S. reclassification of marijuana, gave up some of those gains on Wednesday. Nonetheless, strength in other key sectors like utilities, consumer noncyclicals, and technology helped the TSX benchmark settle in green territory.
In its latest statement, The Fed justified its decision to keep interest rates unchanged by pointing to the continued growth in economic activities and job gains. However, it intends to reduce the pace of trimming Treasury securities holdings from June onwards. The central bank’s chair, Jerome Powell, also mentioned that “it’s unlikely that the next policy rate move will be a hike.”
Top TSX Composite movers and active stocks
Brookfield Renewable Partners (TSX:BEP.UN) jumped nearly 12% to $32.21 per share, making it the top-performing TSX stock for the day. This rally in the renewable energy giant’s shares came after it announced a five-year global renewable energy agreement to help Microsoft achieve its sustainability goals by 2030.
This Brookfield-Microsoft partnership aims to develop over 10.5 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity in the U.S. and Europe, with potential expansion to Asia-Pacific, India, and Latin America. Despite the recent rally, however, Brookfield Renewable stock is still down 7.5% on a year-to-date basis.
New Gold and Bombardier were also among the top performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange yesterday as they inched up by at least 7.4% each.
On the flip side, Tilray, Baytex Energy, Cargojet, and Whitecap Resources dived by at least 4.2% each, making them the day’s worst-performing TSX stocks.
According to the exchange’s daily trade volume data, Manulife Financial, Suncor Energy, Baytex Energy, Cenovus Energy, and Enbridge were the five most active stocks.
TSX today
Commodity prices across the board were mixed early Thursday morning, pointing to a flat opening for the resource-heavy main TSX index today.
Besides the weekly U.S. jobless claims, Canadian investors may want to pay attention to Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem’s comments about the economy during his speech at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance this morning.
On the corporate events front, several TSX-listed companies, including Aritzia, Air Canada, Sandstorm Gold, Trisura, TMX, Pason Systems, Open Text, Altus Group, IGM Financial, Fairfax Financial, Capstone Copper, Thomson Reuters, Canadian Natural Resources, AltaGas, Atco, Bausch Health, Colliers International, BCE, Canadian Utilities, and Maple Leaf Foods are expected to announce their latest quarterly results on May 2.
Market movers on the TSX today
