The Daily Chase: TSX at all-time highs, Canada jobs number surpasses expectations
BNN Bloomberg
Here are five things you need to know this morning.
TSX at all-time highs: The Toronto Stock Exchange’s main index set new all-time intraday and closing highs yesterday, and could be poised for more gains today as a mostly positive earnings season winds toward a close. After spending much of 2023 lagging markets in New York riding the tech sector wave, it’s nice to see Canada’s benchmark stock index cranking out gains. The index is now up by almost 20 per cent since November. While investors have a slew of earnings to digest today in setting the direction for equities, in terms of market-moving events, the biggest dot on the calendar for the day is probably the next item on our chase list.
Canada beats expectations on jobs number: Canada added 90,000 jobs in April, Statistics Canada reported Friday, far better than the roughly 20,000 that economists were expecting. The stronger-than-expected showing caused markets to reprice the odds of a rate cut next month, although they’re still about a 50-50 chance. Prior to the jobs report, the odds were nearly two in three of a cut.
Novavax shares double on vaccine licensing deal with Sanofi: Shares in vaccine maker Novavax are soaring in premarket trading on Friday after the company signed a deal with larger rival Sanofi to commercialize a combined influenza and COVID vaccine. The deal gives Novavax, which has market cap of about US$600 million, an instant $500 million in upfront payments, followed by another $700 million down the line if certain targets are met. Sanofi is also taking an equity stake in the company of about five per cent, Novavax said. The company’s N.Y.-listed shared were up by more than 217 per cent at one point this morning, but headed into the open had pared those gains to roughly 120 per cent. That gain puts the company well on its way to its best single-day ever on the market.
Manufacturing sales fell 2.1 per cent to $69.9 billion in March as sales of petroleum and coal products and motor vehicles fell, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. Olivia Cross, North America economist at Capital Economics, said the result was not as bad as the early estimate that pointed to a drop of 2.8 per cent, but it still means sales fell 0.9 per cent over the first quarter. "The weakness of manufacturing sales in March suggests that the economy lost momentum heading into the second quarter, matching the message from the earlier preliminary estimates for retail sales and GDP," Cross said in a note. Last month, Statistics Canada released a pair of preliminary estimates for real gross domestic product and retail sales for March that both suggested the data points were essentially unchanged for the month. Driving the manufacturing sales numbers for March was an 8.0 per cent drop in sales of petroleum and coal products to $8.0 billion as volumes fell 6.1 per cent. Sales of motor vehicles fell 7.9 per cent to $4.6 billion in March as sales of motor vehicle parts lost 2.8 per cent. Statistics Canada says retoolings at several major auto assembly plants in Ontario continued to impact auto manufacturing and contributed to the lower sales for the month. Meanwhile, sales of machinery rose 2.9 per cent to $4.5 billion in March. The increase came as sales in all seven machinery industry groups climbed higher, led by commercial and service industry machinery which gained 41.6 per cent. Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 2.0 per cent in March. Total inventories for the month were largely unchanged at $121.0 billion in March, while unfilled orders fell 0.8 per cent to $104.8 billion. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 15, 2024.