Canada's main stock index rose on Thursday, as lower bond yields boosted risk appetite, offsetting weakness in energy shares caused by falling oil prices and a global selloff in AI-related technology stocks.
The TSX Composite Index soared 552.64 points, or 1.6%, to close Thursday at 36,137.10.
The Canadian dollar inched up 0.12 cents to 70.48 cents U.S.
Among techs, e-commerce platform Shopify barreled $7.05, or 2.9%, $252.53, and electronics equipment firm Celestica was down $14.44, or 3.1%, to $446.70.
Economically speaking, wholesale sales declined 1.6% to $91.6 billion in August. Elsewhere, manufacturing sales rose 1.5% in August, primarily on higher sales of primary metals and chemical products. Meanwhile, sales in the transportation equipment subsector posted the largest decline.
Finally, there were 174,611 new motor vehicles sold in Canada in August 2026, an increase of 4.9% from the same month one year earlier. In dollar terms, sales increased 8.8% relative to August 2025.
Over the same period, the number of new passenger cars sold grew by 14.2%, while the number of new trucks sold increased 3.5%.
ON BAYSTREET
The TSX Venture Exchange picked up 16.05 points, or 1.9%, to 846.38.
All but one of the 12 subgroups were in plus territory, led by gold, up 3.9%, while materials grabbed 3.3%, and consumer staples improved
2.6%.
Only energy moved lower, and 0.5% at that.
ON WALLSTREET
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose on Thursday as concerns around tech companies overspending on artificial intelligence led investors to rotate out of the trade and seek value elsewhere. Traders also digested U.S. data that pointed to persistent inflation.
The 30-stock index leaped 556.21 points, or 1.1%, to 52,177.69
The S&P 500 index was up 25.12 points to 7,744.06
The tech-heavy NASDAQ added 20.16 points to 27,713.10. Seagate Technology and Western Digital added to their declines this week, along with shares of SK Hynix, which drove a rout in South Korea’s Kospi index overnight.
Traders were becoming concerned about a potential memory chip glut as South Korea faces increasing competition from China. Tesla CEO Elon Musk discussed the matter in a post on X, saying that “China will be making a LOT of RAM in 2028.”
Compounding worries in the AI space, sources told the media that Anthropic’s revenue grew to $16.8 billion in the third quarter, with some traders concerned the AI giant’s top line might not be growing fast enough to justify the lofty gains in chipmakers.
However, other stocks in the AI trade recovered. CoreWeave shares gained almost 6%, reversing course from the prior day’s losses. The stock tumbled more than 15% in the previous session as investors grew fearful that the company was borrowing too much for its AI build-out.
CoreWeave corporate bond yields also surged. Additionally, Micron Technology rebounded from earlier losses to gain nearly 2%.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury climbed, lowering yields to 5.08% from Wednesday’s 5.24%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices gained $2.48 to $97.57 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices popped $83.20 to $4,191.10 U.S. an ounce.
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