On Thursday, the U.S. equity markets were closed for the holiday while Toronto ended the day about unchanged.
TransAlta, which I mentioned on Monday evening as a possible speculative pick was up 7.7%. The increase was related to news that TransAlta (and some other power companies) will receive some compensation for coal-fired power plants that are being forced to close before the end of their useful lives. The compensation is tied to the book value of the power plants.
From what I can see, this news came out only after the end of trading which would mean that the 7.7% rise today was the result of the news leaking out (the trading upon which is illegal). There could be a further gain tomorrow.
Capital Power only rose 2% on the (apparently leaked) news. This makes perfect sense. TransAlta trades at less than book value and therefore being compensated at book value is a bonus. Capital Power, I believe trades above book value and so receiving just book value would not be such good news (although it is far better than no compensation). But there was also related bad news for Capital Power in terms of a payment it must make to the government.