36,759.29. Fourth Straight Record.
The S&P/TSX Composite closed at 36,759.29 Thursday, up 97.15 points or 0.26 percent, its fourth consecutive record close and fifth in the past six sessions. The index has now added 4.27 percent since July 14. Financials, technology and communication services led the advance, with Shopify up 5.33 percent on the session. Energy stocks lagged as Brent crude broke a five session winning streak and fell below $87 a barrel.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by only 528 to 451, a breadth ratio far tighter than a fourth record close usually implies. Beneath the index level, dispersion was extreme: Bird Construction rose 11.44 percent on acquisition news while Boyd Group Services fell 12.56 percent and Pan American Silver dropped 9.78 percent as gold pulled back 1.35 percent from its session high. A record built on this much single name movement is worth watching for how it resolves over the next several sessions, not just banking as broad based strength.
The Chart the Record Sits On Top Of
WTI slipped 3.75 percent Thursday and Brent fell 2.18 percent to $87.04, both breaking five session winning streaks as the IEA and OPEC issued fresh downward revisions to their 2026 demand forecasts. USD/CAD traded near 1.393, with the loonie modestly firmer on the month even as oil, a traditional Canadian dollar driver, gave back ground, a sign the currency is currently tracking the country's own strong growth and employment data more than crude.
The index gapped higher after August 4 on a broad reversal in risk sentiment and has printed four consecutive record closes since August 7, with the five day moving average tracking the advance closely and volume holding above 240 million shares in every session of the streak.
What the Bond Market Did While Equities Celebrated
Government of Canada 10 year yields closed near 3.63 percent Thursday, down slightly on the day but still near their highest level since May 2024 after climbing on this week's stronger than expected GDP and employment data. The 5 year GoC yield eased to 3.24 percent. Higher yields are typically a headwind for equity valuations, and the fact the TSX pushed to a fourth straight record in the same week that yields hit a two year high says something about how much conviction is currently behind the advance: enough to shrug off a repricing that would normally give a rally pause.
The Setup Into Friday
The index enters Friday having gone five sessions without a genuine down day of consequence, the lone exception a fractional pullback on August 6. Volume has stayed elevated through the entire streak, averaging above 270 million shares daily this week, which argues against the advance being a low conviction drift higher. The near term test is whether financials and technology can keep absorbing the drag from a softer energy tape, or whether Thursday's extreme dispersion beneath the index, big single stock winners and losers on both sides, is an early signal that this leg of the rally is running out of broad participation.
Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal and Manulife all posted modest gains Thursday alongside heavier volume names including Enbridge, Air Canada, Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus Energy and Whitecap Resources, underscoring that energy remained among the most actively traded parts of the market even while it lagged on price. Suncor was the exception among the majors, up 2.37 percent, a reminder that the energy sector's underperformance Thursday was an index level story rather than a uniform one across every name in it.