The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that the total value of new stock sales by Canadian companies from July through September fell 74 per cent to $1.8-billion from $6.8-billion year-over-year, according to Refinitiv data. The Globe's Jameson Berkow writes that is the lowest total for any quarter since 1998. The quarter also marked a historic low for the number of Canadian stock sales in a three-month period. Just 21 equity financing transactions were completed in the third quarter of 2024, the first time fewer than 29 deals were done during any quarter since the third quarter of 1998, when just 19 were completed. "Our issuers are finding themselves hard-pressed to find a reason to raise equity," Peter Miller, head of equity capital markets at Bank of Montreal, told The Globe. "The more troubling part, as a Canadian, is they are not raising equity capital for new projects. That is a little bit troubling because you need capital to grow, and if they are not raising capital, that raises questions about the kind of growth we are going to see." Canadian economic growth has been mixed in recent months. Gross domestic product grew faster than expected in July but was flat in August, according to Statistics Canada.