Indexes got tired of living in the cellar Friday, and muscled higher on the back of tech and health-care items.
The S&P/TSX popped 474.36 points, or 2.4%, to make it into lunch hour at 20,173,41.
The Canadian dollar regained 0.53 cents at 77.31 cents U.S.
Tech issues ruled the roost, with Lightspeed POS hiking $5.81, or 27.6% to $26.86, while HUT 8 Mining climbed 42 cents, or 13.3%, to $3.59.
Strategists are saying as Canada's economy overheats, the Bank of Canada is likely to be among the first of the major central banks to lift
interest rates to a more normal setting even as worries persist about record-high levels of household debt.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange leaped 36.14 points, or 5.4%, to 704.39.
All 12 TSX subgroups were in the green in the early afternoon, with information technology igniting 5.8%, health-care haler by 5.1%, and energy rumbling 4.2%.
ON WALLSTREET
Stocks jumped Friday, as investors looked to steer the S&P 500 away from official bear market territory and bounce back from a week of sharp losses.
The Dow Jones Industrials climbed 394.31 points, or 1.2%, to 32,124.61, as it looked to break a six-day losing streak
The S&P 500 restocked 94.48 points, or 2.4%, to 4,024.56.
The NASDAQ Composite spiked 437.75 points, or 3.9%, to 11,808.71.
Despite those gains, the major averages were on track to post losses for the week. The Dow is down more than 2%, while the S&P 500 declined 3% and NASDAQ has slipped about 4%.
All the S&P 500 sectors moved higher on Friday led by gains in consumer discretionary and information technology. It was a broad-based comeback with about 93% of the S&P 500 in the green.
American Express, Boeing, Nike and Salesforce rose about 4% each, leading the Dow higher.
Beaten-up tech stocks Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Amazon added 4%, while Tesla jumped 7% and Nvidia popped 10%. Apple rose 3.5% after becoming the last Big Tech name to fall into its own bear market on Thursday.
Following strong gains in the previous session, heavily shorted meme stocks AMC Entertainment and GameStop popped 6.6% and 10.8%, respectively. Carvana ripped 2% higher.
Meanwhile, Twitter shares plunged 8.7% after Elon Musk announced a standstill in the takeover deal as he awaits more details on the platform’s fake accounts. In other news, Robinhood popped 21% after crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried acquired a stake in the company.
On the earnings front, Affirm shares soared 19% on the back of a better-than-expected earnings report.
Treasury prices slid, raising yields to 2.94% from Thursday’s 2.86%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices strengthened $4.26 at $110.39 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices tumbled $15.50 to $1,809.10 U.S. an ounce.
