Canada’s main stock index reversed course to finish lower Monday as U.S. markets rose and gold traded for more than US$5,000 an ounce.
“For any market, you’re going to see some volatility here as we’re looking for where the leadership is going to come through for the rest of the year,” said Carol Schleif, chief market strategist at BMO Private Wealth.
Trade tensions came back into focus after a weekend social media post in which U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Canadian goods if Ottawa reaches a trade deal with China.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said at an unrelated announcement in Ottawa on Monday that it’s no coincidence Trump’s latest tariff threat against Canada comes just ahead of a review of North America’s free-trade pact.
The most important factor is that both sides are continuing to talk, Schleif said, and Mexico will have to be factored into the discussions as well.
“The bottom line is, it’s a huge trading block. There’s a lot of important trade that goes on on both sides of the border. Maintaining those sorts of relationships and figuring out how to carry them forward, those folks on the ground know how important that is,” she said.
In the gold market, the metal’s price rallied another 2.1% and briefly topped US$5,100 per ounce for the first time to set another record. The February gold contract was up US$102.80 at US$5,082.50 an ounce.
Silver surged even more and settled 14% higher.
Prices for precious metals have been soaring as investors look for safer places to park their money amid threats of tariffs, still-high inflation, political strife and mountains of debt for governments worldwide.
Schleif said that the gains in gold are coming as central banks are looking to diversify their holdings and investors are looking to get exposure to real assets that “they hope will be their fallback if things get really bumpy.”
The S&P/TSX composite index was down 51.66 points at 33,093.32.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 313.69 points at 49,412.40. The S&P 500 index was up 34.62 points at 6,950.23, while the Nasdaq composite was up 100.11 points at 23,601.36.
Schleif said there is a lot of optimism on Wall Street about the likely strength of earnings coming through.
Several of Wall Street’s most influential stocks are set to deliver their latest earnings reports this week, including Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Tesla on Wednesday and Apple on Thursday.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.98 cents US compared with 72.82 cents US on Friday.
The March crude oil contract was down 44 cents US at US$60.63 per barrel.
— With files from The Associated Press