Wednesday's fourth consecutive record close paired financials with gold miners. Thursday broke the pairing apart, and a cooler U.S. inflation print did not do for Canadian yields what it did for the Fed.

Wednesday's record TSX session came with a 12 percent single stock surge and a near 5 percent single stock decline on the same day. The sector rotation underneath the headline number is the more durable signal.

A cooling US CPI print eased yields across North America Wednesday, but the TSX's fourth straight record now runs on gold, not oil, and Canada's own economic data still sits underneath the Fed's good news.

Record first half results and gold ounces sold up 23 percent were not enough to offset a miss on a single consensus figure, the same pattern that hit Barrick two sessions earlier.

A two cent earnings miss overshadowed 50 percent earnings growth, a production beat and a deal that clears the path to an IPO.

Friday's gold and oil decoupling was real. Assuming it holds without the Hormuz deal actually closing is the availability heuristic at work.

A blowout Canadian jobs report and a shock US payrolls miss sent the TSX and S&P 500 to record highs this week, pushed gold to a two-month high, and knocked Brent crude down more than 7%, even as the Strait of Hormuz shipping deal stayed stalled in Iran's parliament.

A quiet 0.03% index decline masked a 27% single-stock collapse and a 13% share-offering hit, while a blowout Canadian jobs report set up a stronger Friday open.

The reported Iran-Oman shipping agreement faces three separate approval points before it changes anything for Canadian energy portfolios, and this week's gold rally was driven by something else entirely.

Financials have gained 22% since the war began in February while materials fell 25%. The rotation behind that split, not Wednesday's single session, is what built the TSX's record, and Thursday's oil whipsaw shows the war that caused it hasn't actually ended.

Shopify's 16.5% surge and a broad gold miner rally carried the index to 36,146.42. Thomson Reuters and Suncor Energy both beat estimates and both closed lower, a split the headline number does not show.

Every major index closed higher Wednesday on Hormuz de-escalation hopes, but gold's largest single-session gain of the week and oil's near-flat close tell a more cautious story than the record headlines do.

The composite gained 1.63% Tuesday on Hormuz optimism, but the sector-level data shows two different markets trading inside the same session: materials up 4.7% on a safe-haven gold rally, energy down as WTI fell 6.36% on the identical headline.

The TSX gained more in one Tuesday session than it lost all of Friday, and gold did the heavy lifting again. But the Government of Canada bond curve eased instead of rising, and the loonie could not hold Friday's level, which is the more useful signal for what happens at the Bank of Canada's September 2 decision.

The S&P/TSX Composite finished the long weekend at 35,226.14, down 0.79 percent on a gold-driven materials selloff and a 11.27 percent TELUS dividend cut. Both the gold price and the oil price that shaped Friday's session have moved since, and not in the same direction.

No single law created it and no single name describes it. On the day markets close for Civic Holiday, a look at how a nineteenth century municipal habit became a coast to coast tradition, and where the TSX stood heading into the break.