The TSX Composite snapped to a new record intraday high Friday, hitting 15,957.87 at 11:31 a.m. ET. A motley assortment of names posted the best percentage performance since the last peak on Feb. 21, 2017, led by the nation’s flagship air carrier.

Best Performers:

Air Canada (AC.TO): +97.2 per cent

Air Canada takes top spot among the lead gainers since the February peak. The nation’s largest air carrier’s stock has nearly doubled over the last eight months ever since the company announced plans to cut ties with Aimia and launch its own loyalty program. The gains were further bolstered by record passenger traffic over the Canada Day long weekend, when more than 166,000 customers hopped a flight.

Shopify (SHOP.TO): +66.3 per cent

Shopify’s 66-per-cent gain is nothing to sneeze at, but the results would have been much stronger were it not for a scathing short report from Citron Research’s Andrew Left, which pummeled the stock in early October. Prior to the report, investors piled into the e-commerce platform supplier, which has seen explosive user growth since going public in May 2015.

Spin Master (TOY.TO): +60.4 per cent

Canada’s largest publicly-traded toy maker has had a year to remember, rising more than 60 per cent on the strength of its Hatchimals. Spin Master booked the bulk of its gains in the wake of a strong second-quarter earnings release in August, rising nearly 30 per cent over the course of just two trading sessions. However, shares of the company have come under pressure in recent days amid concerns the company will be stung by the Toys “R” Us bankruptcy.

BRP (DOO.TO): +54.6 per cent

A blowout first quarter due to demand for offroad vehicles and higher than expected snowmobile orders coming out of the winter helped BRP into the upper echelons of the TSX. The strength in the quarter prompted the company to introduce its first dividend and helped drive shares eight per cent higher in a single session. While BRP briefly hit an all-time high earlier in the fall, some wind came out of the company’s sales when it launched a $433.5-million bought deal offering.  

Premium Brands (PBH.TO): +49.6 per cent

Sandwich-meat maker Premium Brands rode a trio of strong earnings reports to fifth spot. The company booked the majority of its gains immediately after releasing its financials, rising more than five per cent in the wake of its fourth and second quarter reports. In every quarter so far this year, Premium Brands has posted revenue growth exceeding 24 per cent.

Top Sectors:

Air Canada’s impact helped push the industrials group to the best showing over the course of the last eight months, but it was far from alone in its outperformance. 21 of the group’s 26 constituents posted a positive performance over that span, with iron horses CN and CP doing much of the heavy lifting.

Shopify, BlackBerry and Constellation Software helped push the Info Tech subindex to the second-best performance.

Consumer discretionary rounded out the top three, as relatively low interest rates helped support consumer spending over the bulk of this year.