Wild week on the markets comes to an end

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It’s been a wild week on the markets. But we’re ending it on a high note. Part of the reason for the gains is a small rebound in oil prices. Crude closed more than two dollars higher than at the start of the week.

Also, the TSX gained more than 260 points Friday, erasing a good portion of the losses from earlier this week. The gains follow a stream of bad news in the retail sector. So what’s going on here?

After Target announced that it is closing 133 stores in Canada, a buying spree of Canadian retail stocks followed.

It was a nice way to end a pretty stressful week for investors. The announcement of the planned closure of 133 Target stores saw Loblaw stocks rise 2.3% and Canadian Tire and Dollarama stocks rise 2.6%. So it’s evident that Target’s trash could be Canadian business treasure according to Marvin Ryder from the DeGroote School of Business: “Immediately, what we saw was that the people who owned that space, the landlords, started calling people like Canadian Tire and Wal-Mart and Dollarama and saying ‘Hey, have you thought about some expansions’. So today we saw retail stocks jump up a little bit for two reasons. One is that potential to expand and therefore have improved revenues and profits. But also simply the removal of a competitor. So that probably means a little less competition, a little less pressure on your margins and a little more profitability. So out of every dark cloud comes a little silver lining.”

Despite the quick turnaround of the retail markets, Mr. Ryder says it will still be some time before the Canadian retailers move into that 20 million square feet of operating space. The liquidation sales won’t start for another 3-4 months and some stores might not actually close until the end of the year. Further, it’s all about location, these businesses aren’t going to expand if it isn’t financially sound.