Q: The plunge in gold on Friday, followed by another today, have coincided with a steep plunge in the TSX on both days. Do we have any idea just how much of the outperformance of the TSX this year is due solely to metals, especially precious metals? Obviously a lot, since the TSX is now underperforming the S&P this month.
5i Research Answer:
Some of the index data is not available. But the materials sector is 16% of the TSX, and it is up 68% year to date. This implies about an 11% boost for the TSX total this year. The TSX is up 21% this year so far. Golds are about 12 percentage points of the 16% materials.