The Stock Market At Close – Tuesday, March 21
The Toronto Market
The TSX index, at today’s market session, gained 135.49 points, or 0.7%, to close at 19,654.92. This marks two consecutive days of straight gains in spite of the banking turmoil.. The financials rose 1.2%, while energy added 3.2% as the price of oil settled at $69.50 a barrel. We are probably seeing the beginning of the end of the banking turmoil.
Canada’s annual inflation rate slowed more than expected in February to 5.2%, its lowest level in 13 months, backing up the Bank of Canada’s plans to hold off on further interest rates hikes.
The gains by the bank stocks today were wide spread, stronger. and more convincing that the end of the banking turmoil may be around the corner.
The US Markets
The three major U.S. stock indexes closed sharply higher today. The financials, energy and consumer discretionary sectors made sizable gains. Economic data released early in the session showed a 14.5% jump in existing home sales, blasting past expectations and snapping a 12-month losing streak.
The Dow Jones index gained 316.02 points, or 0.98%, to close at 32,560.6. The S&P 500 gained 51.3 points, or 1.30%, to close at 4,002.87. The Nasdaq index gained 184.57 points, or 1.58%, to close at 11,860.11. Eight of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500 ended the session in positive territory, with energy stocks, boosted by rising crude prices, posting the largest percentage gains.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining issues on the NYSE by a 3.22-to-1 ratio. The ratio on Nasdaq advancing issues to declining issues was 2.73-to-1 on the Nasdaq. The S&P 500 posted 5 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 48 new highs and 114 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 11.75 billion shares, compared with the 12.63 billion average over recent sessions. The market is in correction, but that notwithstanding, it is always a positive sign when the market gains on increased volumes of shares traded during the market session.
In company news, Tesla Inc. (TSLA) advanced 7.8% after car registration data showed the company to be on track to report one of its best quarters in China.
Shares of First Republic Bank (FRC) soared by 29.5% during the market session today. That is the company’s biggest-ever one-day percentage jump. The jump in stock price came after Wall Street Journal reported that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was leading talks with other big banks aimed at investing in the FRC bank. PacWest Bancorp and Western Alliance Bancorp also surged, leaping 18.8% and 15.0%, respectively.
.
Stocks In The News/ Stocks To Watch
The Toronto Market
Top gainers at the Canadian market today included Blackberry Ltd. (BB) which gained 5.06% to close at $5.06. Precision Drilling Corp was the top gainer on the TSX index with a gain of 8.69% to close at $68.28. Volume of shares traded was 165.4K. Nuvei Corp (NVEI) gained 4.57% to close at $58.62. Lightspeed Commerce Inc. gained 5.6% to close at $21.13. Shopify Inc. today gained 4.57% to close at $62.73.
The US Market
Tesla Inc. was a big gainer today. The stock appears to have defied the current stock market turmoil.
GOOGLE and ChatGPT
Alphabet (GOOGL) kicks off public access to ChatGPT rival Bard. The company said today, that it is beginning to publicly release Bard, the Google parent’s rival to artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, with a view to improving the experimental product through feedback.
Alphabet will initially roll out Bard in the US and the UK starting Tuesday, with plans to expand to more countries and languages in the future. In a blog post., the company described Bard as, “an early experiment that lets you collaborate with generative AI”. The stock gained 3.66% or $3.70 to close to day at $104.92.
Another stock to keep an eye on if the market gets out of correction is ETSY Inc. (ETSY). The stock today, gained 4.01% or $4.35 to close at $112.71 with a volume of 3.5M shares traded.
.
Regular Market Day Features
Beginner Investor’s (Canadian stocks) Watchlist
Bombardier bounced back today gaining 3.71% during the market session. The recovery with the banks was stronger and wide spread today compared to yesterday.
.
The Canadian Vanguard Chinese Stocks Watchlist
Baidu (BIDU ) continues to gain daily. The e-Commerce companies (Alibaba (BABA) and JD.COM (JD) gained except for Pinduoduo (PDD).
EV, Energy and Resource Stocks Watchlist at Today’s Market
Tesla was a big gainer today but the energy stocks also gained.
. IMPORTANT NOTICE
