Gold and Copper Fell Together. That Was 70% of the TSX’s Decline.
The session and the print
The S&P/TSX Composite was down 0.966% at 35,636.51 at about 10:30 this morning, against Tuesday’s close of 35,983.98, and a single sector did about 70% of it. All market figures in this piece are live readings taken at about 10:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, and are not closes.
New York was lower too, by less. On the same freeze the S&P 500 was off 0.63% and the NASDAQ Composite 0.89%.
The morning ran in a recognisable order. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics published September’s Consumer Price Index at 8:30 and the headline rate came in above August’s. Treasury yields rose, further at the front of the curve than at the long end. The US dollar firmed. Metals fell.
The oddity is that the commodity sitting inside the American print is the one that has carried Canadian energy all year. Gasoline is refined oil, and oil is what has driven the TSX energy sector in 2026, which is where Tuesday’s TSX report on Canadian Natural Resources landed as well. Today the same barrel turned up in a US statistical release, and the part of the Canadian index that moved was the mining half.
What the release actually said
The all items index “increased 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in September” and was up “3.7 percent before seasonal adjustment” over twelve months. Core, which strips out food and energy, “rose 0.3 percent in September” and 2.6% over the year. The energy index rose 5.2% in the month and 20.4% over twelve months, with gasoline up 9.1% on the month and 34.2% over the year, per the BLS Consumer Price Index Summary.
Computed from the BLS index levels, the three series through 2026:
| Month 2026 | Headline y/y | Core y/y | Energy y/y |
|---|---|---|---|
| February | 2.41% | 2.46% | 0.48% |
| March | 3.26% | 2.60% | 12.53% |
| April | 3.81% | 2.75% | 17.87% |
| May | 4.25% | 2.85% | 23.54% |
| June | 3.53% | 2.59% | 15.70% |
| July | 3.36% | 2.48% | 14.73% |
| August | 3.40% | 2.45% | 16.28% |
| September | 3.74% | 2.56% | 20.45% |
The headline rate rose 0.34 percentage points from August. Core rose 0.11. Core has now sat inside a band of 2.45% to 2.85% for eight straight months while the headline swung from 2.41% up to 4.25% and back down again. One series is describing an energy market. The other is describing everything else, and it has barely moved.
Rates repriced the front end hardest
The move in Treasuries was concentrated at the short end. The five-year yield was 5.086% and the ten-year 5.274%, up 7.9 and 5.7 basis points respectively, with both ends of each comparison read off the same Yahoo Finance yield series. The official reference for Tuesday is the US Treasury daily yield curve file, whose October 13 row puts the two-year at 4.79%, the five-year at 5.00%, the ten-year at 5.21% and the thirty-year at 5.56%.
A front end moving further than the long end is a repricing of the near-term policy path rather than a change in what investors demand for holding duration. Gold, on the bullion-trust basis, was down 1.63% at the same time.
Materials did 70% of it, and stripping it out reverses the comparison
We rebuilt the move holding by holding, using iShares XIC fund weights as of Tuesday and each name’s price return this morning. The model covers 99.65% of index weight and reproduces a 95.7 basis point decline against the 96.6 the index actually fell.
| Sector | TSX weight % | S&P 500 weight % | Contribution (pp) | Sector return % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Materials | 17.86 | 1.62 | -0.673 | -3.77 |
| Financials | 33.55 | 11.50 | -0.266 | -0.79 |
| Information Technology | 9.46 | 39.25 | -0.031 | -0.32 |
| Industrials | 9.86 | 8.02 | -0.015 | -0.16 |
| Utilities | 3.22 | 1.94 | -0.008 | -0.24 |
| Real Estate | 1.17 | 1.68 | -0.004 | -0.30 |
| Communication | 1.40 | 9.88 | -0.003 | -0.23 |
| Energy | 16.90 | 3.63 | -0.001 | -0.01 |
| Health Care | 0.28 | 9.14 | +0.001 | +0.19 |
| Consumer Discretionary | 2.95 | 8.72 | +0.008 | +0.29 |
| Consumer Staples | 3.00 | 4.62 | +0.034 | +1.14 |
Materials contributed -0.673 percentage points of the -0.957 point modelled move, 70.2% of it, from 17.86% of the index. Financials, at nearly double the weight, contributed -0.266. The exposure gap is the whole story: materials is 17.86% of the TSX against 1.62% of the S&P 500, an elevenfold difference.
What each index holds and what each sector did to the TSX on October 14, 2026. Sector weights from the iShares XIC and XUS holdings files as of October 13, 2026. Contribution is each holding’s fund weight times its price return, summed by sector, at 10:30 a.m. ET. Prices: Yahoo Finance.
The other 81.8% of covered weight fell 0.35% cap-weighted, which is less than the S&P 500’s 0.63%. Toronto’s bigger fall is one sector. Without it, Toronto had the better morning.
The three largest detractors in the index are gold names: Agnico Eagle at -4.61% (-12.0bp), Wheaton Precious Metals at -4.54% (-7.8bp) and Barrick Mining at -3.88% (-7.2bp). Royal Bank is fourth at -6.4 basis points, and it carries nearly three times Agnico’s weight to get there.
Materials splits into three buckets that foot to the sector total. Precious metals is 42 names and 13.42% of the index, and it contributed -0.59 percentage points, which is 87.2% of the materials number and 61.2% of the entire index decline. All 42 fell, without a single exception. Base metals is nine names and 2.80% of the index, at -0.09 percentage points, and all nine fell too, from Teck B at -2.69% and First Quantum at -2.82% out to Capstone at -4.52% and Ero Copper at -5.11%. The nine-name remainder, 1.64% of the index, added 0.01 percentage points, and the only materials names that rose are the ones that are not metals: Labrador Iron Ore +3.23%, Stella-Jones +1.76%, Nutrien +0.75% and Methanex +0.43%.
That last split is the useful part. Copper and zinc names falling 2.7% to 5.1% alongside the gold names points at the dollar and the front end of the curve rather than at anything specific to gold, and it complicates the simplest version of the leverage story: whatever reached the gold producers was reaching metals generally.
The leverage is real all the same, and it comes from the cost base. A producer’s earnings sit on the gap between what an ounce costs it and what an ounce sells for, so a 1.63% move in the metal is a much larger move in the margin. How thick that cushion is decides how much leverage a name carries, in both directions, which is why our ranking of Canadian gold stocks on margin sorts them on the share of each gold dollar a company keeps rather than on ounces in the ground.
Energy’s sector return of -0.01% is a net rather than a verdict on oil. Cameco, which is uranium and sits in the energy sector, fell 3.12% and was the sector’s single largest drag, while the oil names held up: Suncor rose 0.62%, Enbridge 0.47%. WTI was $95.40 on the November contract at the time of the snapshot, up 1.34%, an intraday price rather than a settlement.
A decline that started in winter, and why it lands harder here
None of this started this morning. Gold bullion is 24.3% below its January 29 peak and silver 51.8% below its January 28 peak. The TSX gold miners fund is 22.8% off its February 27 high and the materials fund 20.4% off the same date. The composite is only 3.6% below its August 25 high, because the other commodity exposure inside it has carried the year: energy is up 62.3% in 2026 against 18.1% for financials. Those year figures and the fund drawdowns are all on a total-return basis with distributions reinvested, and on that basis the iShares energy fund’s Tuesday close was the highest in a series that runs back to March 2001.
Energy, the composite, the TSX gold miners and gold bullion through 2026, total return rebased to the 2025 close. Readings at about 10:30 a.m. ET on October 14, 2026. Prices: Yahoo Finance.
Concentration of this kind has a measured record, and it does not always point the same way. Our guide on the difference between a correction and a bear market sets two full cycles side by side: in the 2014 to 2016 oil collapse the Canadian market fell 24.4% against 14.2% for the American market, while in the 2022 rate shock the Canadian market fell 17.6% and the US market 25.4%. Its explanation is the one the attribution shows again this morning: “The S&P/TSX Composite is concentrated in banks, energy producers and miners, so a collapse in commodity prices lands on a large share of the index at once.” Which way the concentration cuts depends on which shock turns up. This morning it cut against Toronto, in miniature, with the whole of the extra decline sitting in one sector.
Data as of about 10:30 a.m. ET on October 14, 2026. Market prices: Yahoo Finance. Index weights: iShares XIC and XUS holdings files as of October 13, 2026.
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Market data are live readings at about 10:30 a.m. ET on October 14, 2026, not closes.
