Oil moved 15 per cent. The index did not.
The S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.61% on Tuesday, and energy was not what led it lower. Materials, information technology and consumer discretionary did the damage, with breadth close to even: 494 stocks fell, 442 rose and 81 were unchanged.
Shopify fell 7.37% to $201.59 after third-quarter revenue came in slightly below estimates. Thomson Reuters fell 7.51% to $157.61 as some investors worried that higher AI spending would weigh on profits. Those two names set the tone of the session.
Oil fell for a second day. Brent settled at US$103.60 and WTI at US$96.09 after President Trump said the United States would end billions of dollars in annual military support to Israel once the year is out. Cheaper crude did not rescue the index, and expensive crude had not carried it either.
The TSX spent the five weeks to Nov 2 inside a 3.7% band, from 35,041.86 on Oct 7 to 36,324.99 on Oct 21, and Tuesday moved it into the lower half of that range.
Nov 3 level is derived from the reported 0.61% decline on the Nov 2 close of 35,801.09. The Oct 30 decline of 1.7% came on a day WTI spot rose.
Neither stocks nor bonds followed crude through October
WTI spot rose from US$95.39 on Oct 13 to US$110.01 on Oct 19, a gain of 15.3% in four sessions. Over the same four sessions the TSX slipped 0.15%, from 35,983.98 to 35,928.63.
The bond market made the same point from the other direction. Between Oct 5 and Oct 30, WTI rose 11.9%, from US$96.13 to US$107.56, while the US 10-year Treasury yield fell 37 basis points, from 5.31% to 4.94%. It was 4.91% on Nov 2.
Indexed to Sep 28, WTI finished October 8.2% higher while the TSX finished 0.4% higher, and the oil line carried a range of about 15 points that the equity line, inside 4 points, did not reproduce.
WTI ranged from 95.02 to 110.01 US dollars a barrel on shared trading dates while the TSX stayed inside a 3.7% band. The spot series ends Oct 30; the Nov 3 WTI futures settlement of 96.09 US dollars is a different series and is not plotted.
The next catalysts sit in Ottawa, not at the wellhead
Governor Tiff Macklem named the energy shock as the main driver of inflation in committee testimony this week and said fiscal policy is not the problem. That puts weight on Thursday, when the federal budget lands, and on the Bank of Canada decision on Dec 9.
If equities and yields are not trading the oil price, Tuesday reads as a stock-specific repricing of two large Canadian names on earnings and AI spending, not a macro signal. The oil price still feeds inflation. It has stopped explaining the tape.