The Stock Market At Close – Friday, September 22
The Toronto Market
The TSX composite index declined -11.65 points, or 0.06%, to close today’s market session at 19,779.97.
The TSX last had a gain last Friday’s market session, when it closed at 20,622.34 points. That is a drop of 842.37 or -4% in five consecutive sessions. Last week the TSX gained every market session. This week the TSX declined every market session. It retraced, gave back all the gains and then some. A good pointer is the US 10-year yield. As long as the yield is around 3.8% or higher, the stock market is fair game. Investors can made similar returns with fixed income investment without the stock market risk. This is more so when the 10-year yield is not only at 4% but it is increasing day after day.
Only four of the ten major sectors of the TSX gained today; Telecommunications Services with a gain of 0.63% and Utilities with a gain of 0.49% led the gaining sectors. Typically, investors move to Utilities and Telecommunications when they are concerned about the security of their investment even if it means reduced returns – defensive approach. Energy followed with a gain of 0.31%. Financials declined -0.29% while Technology declined -0.42%.
Today’s Statistics: The gaining issues (advancers) again outnumbered the declined issues (decliners) but the gap narrowed significantly compared to yesterday. The ratio of advancers to decliners was 1.25-to-1.00. In real numbers, 748 advancers to 596 decliners with 202 Unchanged. There were 7 new 52-week highs and 76 new 52-week lows. The total volume of shares traded for gaining stocks was a paltry 120,991,999 or 46.9%; the total volume for declined stocks was 112,054,938 or 43.4% and 24,976,982 or 9.7% for “Unchanged”.
The total volume of stocks traded today was 258,023,919 compared to 270,002,709 yesterday, a 4.5% decrease. Today’s volume of 258,023,919 is lower than the most recent ten-market session average.
The US Markets
The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined -106.58 points, or -0.31%, to close at 33,963.84. The S&P 500 declined -9.94 points, or -0.23%, to close at 4,320.06. The Nasdaq Composite declined -12.18 points, or -0.09%, to close at 13,211.81.
Technology with a gain of 0.345%, Energy with a gain of 0.22% and Basic Materials with a gain of 0.09% led the gaining sectors, while Cyclical Consumers Goods and Services with a decline of -0.71%, Financials with -0.51% decline and Durable Consumer Goods and Services with a decline of -0.42% were the worst performing sectors.
Volume was lower today at the markets. Volume at Nasdaq was down -14.2% and down -8.5 % at the NYSE. The S&P 500 is about 5% below its 50-day moving average. NASDAQ is also below its 50-day moving average. It is not the best time to be in the market. The markets are in a down trend. The market will always do whatever it wants to do. The market could reverse trend at the next market session but indications are that this is a time to be on the sidelines unless there are some other compelling reasons.
Today’s Statistics: Today, the declined issues (decliners) outnumbered the gaining issues (advancers) on both the NYSE and NASDAQ. The ratio of decliners to advancers on the NYSE was 1.10-to-1. In real numbers 2,064 decliners to 1,851 advancers with 277 “Unchanged”. There were 31 new 52-week highs and 230 new 52-week lows. The total volume of volume-gaining stocks was 395,533,037or 42.9%; the total volume of declined-volume stocks was 519,427,393 or 56.4%; and 6,685,115 or 0.7% “Unchanged”.
On the NASDAQ, the ratio of decliners to advancers was 1.31-to-1. The decliners prevailed today but the gap between the decliners and advancers was reduced compared to yesterday. In real numbers, 2,468 decliners to 1,872 advancers with 373 unchanged. There were 33 new 52-week highs and 371 new 52-week lows. The total volume of volume-gaining stocks was 1,900,631,015 or 43.1%; the total volume of declined-volume stocks was 2,440,497,305 or 55.3% and 71,499,550 or 1.6% for “Unchanged”.
The total volume of stocks on the NASDAQ traded today was 4,412,627,870 compared to 4,920,500,513 yesterday, a decrease of 10%.
10 –year Treasury Yield: The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield fell 4 basis points to 4.44%, while the two-year yield also slipped 4 basis points to 5.48%.
Stocks In The News/Stocks To Watch:
The Toronto Market
It has been a bad week at the TSX but some stocks of some companies have defied the down trend. One such stock is TSX:BDGI (Badger Infrastructure Solutions Ltd.) which gained 1.46% or $0.50 to close at $34.75 today with 82.8K shares changing hands.
ATS Corporation (TSX:ATS) climbed on the acquisition of Avidity Science. The market appears to approve of the acquisition. ATS is acquiring the designer and manufacturer of automated water purification solutions for biomedical and life science applications for C$265 million. Shares of ATS were up 3.60% or $2.07 to close the market session at $59.64. Volume of shares traded was 151.5K
The US Markets
The major technology stocks have declined the last several market sessions. NVIDIA Corp (NVDA) has been the lead gainer this year. NVDA stock closed at $143.15 on January 2nd this year. The stock touched $500 in an intraday high several sessions ago. The stock declined the last three weeks. The stock today gained 1.45% or $5.93 to close at $416.10. The company is a manufacturer of AI processing chips. Will the stock rebound soon or is the AI hype now on a long due pause? The market will do whatever it wants to do.
The Chinese have seen major declines the past few months as the economy in China continues to struggle. The authorities have taken a number of steps to energize and get the economy back on the road to recovery but so far these efforts are yet to achieve the desired results. However, things may finally be looking up even if slowly. Two stocks to keep an eye on as the economy tries to rebound are FUTU Holdings (FUTU) and Pinduoduo (PDD).
Pinduoduo may finally be gearing up to punch through the $100.00 share price. The $100.00 price appears to be a resistance level so far.
Regular Market Day Features
Beginner Investor’s (Canadian stocks) Watchlist
The Canadian Vanguard Chinese Stocks Watchlist
Is the Chinese economy finally starting to respond to the various attempts by the authorities there to nudge it back up? Today all the stocks in our watchlist closed the market session in green.
EV, Energy and Resource Stocks Watchlist
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