Equities Weekly — Saturday October 31 2026

TSX Slips as Defensives Lead a Cautious Rotation

The S&P/TSX Composite closed the week lower, as investors rotated out of Materials and Technology and into steadier, income-oriented names. Utilities, Financials and Energy led the index, while Materials and Technology bore the brunt of the pullback, a defensive tilt reinforced by a rising VIX and a sharp drop in crypto sentiment into Fear territory. The move diverged from Europe, where the DAX, STOXX Europe 600 and Euro Stoxx 50 all posted solid gains, and from the United States, where the Nasdaq led benchmarks lower even as the Russell 2000 and most sectors advanced. Canadian dollar strength and a dip in US Treasury yields rounded out a week defined more by positioning than by a single headline. Attention now turns to a heavy run of Canadian earnings, led by Enbridge, Canadian Natural Resources and BCE, alongside US payrolls, CPI and PPI data that could confirm or unwind this week’s defensive rotation.

The Week in Canadian Equities

The S&P/TSX Composite closed the week at 35,620.00, down 0.47% from 35,788.20 a week earlier. The decline was modest set against sharper moves in Materials and Technology beneath the surface, and it came even as the Canadian dollar firmed slightly, with USD/CAD down 0.28% to 1.3973. There is nothing in the week’s corporate disclosures that speaks directly to the Canadian market: the filings flagged this week, from Ingersoll Rand, T1 Energy, Citizens Financial Group and Xcel Energy, are US company-specific items with limited read-through north of the border. The clearer story sits in the sector numbers themselves. Investors rotated away from the resource and growth names that had led earlier gains, favouring steadier, income-oriented exposure instead, a pattern that fits with a market growing more cautious rather than one reacting to a single headline. That caution shows up in sentiment too: the VIX climbed from a low of 16.68 at the start of the period to a high of 19.45 before settling at 19.42, and the crypto fear and greed index fell sharply from 63 to 30, now firmly in Fear territory. Neither move points to panic, but together they mark a shift in tone from the start of the month. For a Canadian investor, the takeaway is that the index-level decline understates the rotation underneath it: this was a week where positioning mattered more than direction, and the defensive tilt in both sentiment gauges and sector leadership is worth carrying into the weeks ahead.

By Athena and Atlas

Sector and Style Leadership

Leadership on the S&P/TSX Composite this week ran defensive. Utilities topped the table at +1.33%, followed by Financials at +1.19% and Energy at +0.41%, while Consumer Staples was roughly flat at -0.22%. The laggards were Real Estate (-1.55%), Technology (-2.70%) and Materials (-3.62%), the latter the worst performer on the board by a wide margin. Averaging the sector indices, cyclical sectors (Energy, Financials, Materials, Industrials, Consumer Discretionary) fell 0.68% while defensives (Utilities, Health Care, Consumer Staples, Real Estate) were down a smaller 0.15%, a gap of 0.53 points in favour of defensives. There are no growth or value style indices for Canada, so this cyclical-defensive split is the clearest read on positioning available, and it points to a market de-risking rather than chasing the resource and technology names that had carried the index earlier in the year. The pattern breaks sharply from the United States, where nine of eleven sectors posted gains: Health Care led at +3.12% and Materials followed at +2.79%, while Technology (-2.03%) and Communication Services (-5.32%) were the only decliners. US cyclicals rose 1.72% on average and US defensives rose 1.97%, both positive, a contrast with Canada where cyclicals were negative. The one shared thread is Technology weakness on both sides of the border, but in Canada that weakness combined with the Materials slide to outweigh the gains in Utilities and Financials, while in the US broader sector strength more than absorbed the Technology and Communication Services losses.

By Athena

The United States and Europe

US benchmarks were mixed to lower this week, a contrast with the broad-based gains across European markets. The Nasdaq fell 2.00% to 25,437.00, the steepest decline among major indices, while the Dow eased 0.85% to 51,770.31 and the S&P 500 slipped 0.57% to 7,580.07. The Russell 2000 broke from that pattern, rising 1.29% to 2,811.84, a sign that smaller-cap names outperformed large-cap technology and growth exposure over the week. Europe moved the opposite way: the DAX gained 2.53% to 25,818.21, the STOXX Europe 600 rose 1.73% to 646.75, the Euro Stoxx 50 added 1.04% to 6,131.31 and the FTSE 100 was up a smaller 0.37% to 10,729.80. The US 10-year yield fell 5.9 basis points to 4.929%, consistent with some easing in rate pressure even as equity performance diverged sharply by region. The VIX ended at 19.42, little changed on the week itself but up from a low of 16.68 earlier in the period, pointing to a modest rise in hedging demand. For Canadian investors, the split between weak US technology performance and firmer European and small-cap results echoes the TSX’s own split between weak Technology and Materials and firmer Financials and Utilities, reinforcing a broader theme of rotation out of growth-sensitive names this week, one that Canadian portfolios with heavy resource and technology weighting should watch closely.

By Athena

Earnings and Corporate News

This week’s corporate disclosures centred on US names with limited direct bearing on Canadian equities, but two carry lessons worth noting. Xcel Energy (XEL) put in place a new $6.0 billion at-the-market equity program, replacing its prior facility, with roughly $3.8 billion already committed under outstanding forward sale agreements, a sizable issuance capacity that points to continued heavy capital spending in the US utility sector and bears watching for share-count dilution, a dynamic relevant to Canadian investors holding utility exposure given Utilities was the top-performing TSX sector this week. Ingersoll Rand (IR) disclosed the retirement of SVP Michael Weatherred alongside an amended employment agreement for CEO Vicente Reynal that includes a planned Nov 23, 2026 grant of 226,098 performance share units valued at approximately $17.1 million, tied to earnings growth goals running from 2027 through 2031, a governance and succession item rather than an operational signal. Elsewhere, T1 Energy (TE) registered 13,440,860 shares for resale tied to conversion of an additional $50.0 million of its 4.75% Convertible Senior Notes due 2031, with no new capital raised, and Citizens Financial Group (CFG) dismissed Deloitte & Touche as its auditor effective after the FY2026 audits, engaging PricewaterhouseCoopers for fiscal 2027, with no disagreements cited. None of these change the operating picture for their sectors, but the Xcel Energy equity program is the one with the clearest read-through for income-oriented investors watching utility balance sheets.

By Athena

The Week Ahead

The Canadian earnings calendar picks up materially next week, with 70 companies reporting in the week of November 2, including Enbridge (ENB.TO), Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO), Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO), Brookfield Asset Management (BAM.TO), BCE (BCE.TO) and Fortis (FTS.TO) among the tracked names, followed by a further 25 companies in the week of November 9 including Barrick Gold (ABX.TO), Brookfield Corporation (BN.TO) and Power Corporation (POW.TO), results that will test whether the defensive leadership in Utilities, Financials and Energy seen this week has fundamental support. That earnings run follows a week in which Core PCE came in line with forecast at 0.3%, unemployment claims undershot at 194K, and Advance GDP beat at 3.4%, a combination pointing to resilient growth without a fresh inflation scare, a backdrop that should matter as US data resumes with the Employment Situation report on Friday, November 6, the Consumer Price Index on Tuesday, November 10, and the Producer Price Index on Friday, November 13, all high-impact releases that will shape rate expectations on both sides of the border. No dated Canadian economic releases fall in this window, though Statistics Canada inflation, Labour Force Survey and monthly GDP data are due on their usual monthly rhythm and will matter for Bank of Canada expectations once published.

By Athena

Herald Chief Publishing Officer Written by Herald, with Athena and Atlas Equities Weekly · Saturday, October 31, 2026 · Weekly equities summary