The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed at 36,137.10 on Thursday, up 552.64 points or 1.55%, its highest close since September 22. Lower bond yields supported the session, according to Baystreet, and the gains came from gold producers and defensive sectors rather than from energy.
The advance followed a 1.11% decline on Wednesday, when a selloff in artificial intelligence stocks weighed on markets. CoreWeave fell 15% that day and rebounded 6% on Thursday, as reported by Baystreet and Yahoo Finance.
The longer view is less dramatic. Across the 22 sessions from September 15 to October 15, the index closed between 35,041.90 and 36,335.60, a range of 3.7%, and finished 1.6% above its starting level of 35,582.10. Six of the 21 daily moves in that span exceeded 1% in either direction.
The index has made six moves larger than 1% since September 15 and remains inside a band set by its closes on September 22 and October 7, while Thursday volume ran 13% above the window average.
The dashed line is the 10-day average of closes, and each volume bar takes the colour of its candle. The 628 million shares traded on September 18 fell on the third Friday of the month, when quarterly index rebalancing and options expiry typically lift volume.
Lower Yields Lifted Gold and Defensives, Not Energy
Gold producers drove the session. The gold subgroup rose 3.9%, the materials sector rose 3.3% and consumer staples rose 2.6%, according to Baystreet. Financials, the largest sector in the index, rose 1.49% to 741.37, which added breadth to a day otherwise led by smaller groups.
Energy moved the other way. The TSX Capped Energy Index fell 0.5% to 475.85, a loss of 2.42 points, on a day when WTI crude settled up 3.03% at $97.97. The composite beat the energy index by about two percentage points, which shows that the oil price alone did not set direction for Canadian equities.
A rally led by gold and staples reads differently from one led by cyclical sectors. Both groups tend to gain when bond yields fall, which fits the yield decline reported for Thursday. The US 10-year Treasury yield still sits near 5.1%, so one session of relief does not reverse the rate backdrop that has framed the market since the Federal Reserve raised its policy range to 3.75% to 4.00% on September 16.
The TSX also outperformed US benchmarks on the day. The S&P 500 gained 0.33% to 7,744.10 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.08% to 52,177.69.
Six Large Moves, Little Net Progress
Six sessions since September 16 moved the index by more than 1%. The gains were 1.08% on September 17, 1.48% on October 9 and 1.55% on October 15, and the declines were 1.61% on September 23, 1.70% on October 7 and 1.11% on October 14. Added together without regard to direction, those moves total 8.5 percentage points, against a net change of 1.6% for the whole window.
The two largest gains came on days when pressure for higher interest rates eased. On October 9, Statistics Canada reported that employment fell by 68,300 in September, and pricing for a Bank of Canada hike on October 28 dropped to about 25% from about 40%, according to LSEG data reported by Reuters. The index rose 1.48% that day, and Thursday brought lower bond yields.
The lower edge of the range was set in early October. The index closed at 35,154.80 on October 1 and at 35,041.90 on October 7, and the intraday low of 34,938.00 on October 1 marks the bottom of the window.
The upper edge is a closing high of 36,335.60 and an intraday high of 36,410.60, both set on September 22. Thursday close is 0.5% below that closing high and 2.5% below the 52-week high of 37,069.10, according to Yahoo Finance.
Participation Improved, but the AI Trade Is Still a Swing Factor
About 291 million shares traded on Thursday, 13% above the average of 258 million for the other 20 sessions in the window, which excludes September 18. That Friday saw 628 million shares, the heaviest volume of the period, on the third Friday of the month, a date that typically brings quarterly index rebalancing and options expiry.
The index opened at 35,520.60, reached a high of 36,143.00 and closed at 36,137.10, which is 5.90 points below the high and 1.7% above the open. A close at the top of the daily range on rising volume is a firmer pattern than the same gain on thin trading.
Wednesday showed the other side. The 1.11% decline, to 35,584.46 from 35,983.97, followed a 15% drop in CoreWeave, and the next session reversed part of it. The pattern suggests that the artificial intelligence trade, which is concentrated in US shares, can still move Canadian indexes sharply in either direction within a day.
Thursday close was 1.7% above the 10-day average of closes, 35,538.31, the widest gap above the average in the period for which it can be calculated, which starts on September 28. The average has declined overall from 35,784.80 on September 28, so the recent gains have only returned the index to a level above a trend that was falling until October 8.
The Calendar That Decides Whether the Range Breaks
Three scheduled events fall inside the next two weeks. Statistics Canada releases September CPI on Monday, October 19. The Federal Open Market Committee meets on October 27 and 28, and the Bank of Canada announces its rate decision on October 28.
Headline CPI was 3.0% in August. The Bank of Canada policy rate is 2.25%, and LSEG pricing puts the chance of a hike on October 28 near 25%. In the United States, consumer prices rose 3.7% in the year to September, core CPI rose 0.33% on the month against 0.2% expected, and CME FedWatch puts the odds of another Fed hike at the October meeting close to even.
A hold in Ottawa alongside a hike in Washington would widen a policy gap that already pushed the Canadian dollar to 70.05 US cents on October 9, its weakest level since April 2025. Oil adds a second pressure: WTI at $97.97 and Brent near $106 feed headline inflation, which is the reading both central banks are weighing.
The range has clear edges. A close above 36,335.60 would clear the top of the 22-session band, and a close below 35,041.90 would break the bottom. Until one of those happens, the evidence points to a market that answers rate news and AI-sector swings with large daily moves and little lasting direction.