By Justin Turner CIM, DMS®, CFP®
Following a short lived correction, markets have taken off over the past couple of weeks. The S&P 500 is looking to take another shot at the 2000 level gaining 1.7% last week alone to finish at 1,988. Previous attempts at breaking the 2000 level over the past couple months have failed which has resulted in minor corrections. The Dow rose 2.0% last week and is now back above the 17,000 level and the NASDAQ climbed another 1.6%. The S&P/TSX Composite underperformed the other major North American indexes, but still returned 1.5% on the week and continues to outperform the US markets so far in 2014.
Following a short lived correction, markets have taken off over the past couple of weeks. The S&P 500 is looking to take another shot at the 2000 level gaining 1.7% last week alone to finish at 1,988. Previous attempts at breaking the 2000 level over the past couple months have failed which has resulted in minor corrections. The Dow rose 2.0% last week and is now back above the 17,000 level and the NASDAQ climbed another 1.6%. The S&P/TSX Composite underperformed the other major North American indexes, but still returned 1.5% on the week and continues to outperform the US markets so far in 2014.
Surprisingly, energy
shares continued to be in demand even as crude oil fell 3.8%, with the energy
sector gaining 2.2% on the week. Energy stocks will need to keep doing well if the TSX wants to
continue to outperform but given the sharp
decline in oil prices it would not be surprising to see energy stocks give back
some of their gains and start to underperform at one point if crude prices don't rebound soon.
The
big news over the weekend is that Burger King is in talks to purchase Tim
Horton’s with the combined company to be headquartered in Canada. Burger King would lower the effective
corporate tax rate by keeping the new company north of the border. This seems the biggest motivation behind the rumored
deal.
