Earnings results loomed large over the stock market on Thursday, with reports from Canada’s Big Six lenders and Nvidia.
“It’s been a trading day that’s really somewhat similar to some of the recent history in the markets,” said Steve Locke, chief investment officer for fixed income and multi-asset strategies at Mackenzie Investments.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 374.63 points at 34,501.96.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 17.05 points at 49,499.20. The S&P 500 index was down 37.27 points at 6,908.86, while the Nasdaq composite was down 273.70 points at 22,878.38.
He said markets have gotten used to U.S. market leadership, particularly among large-cap names.
“I think since around the mid-fourth quarter last year … we’ve seen a real shift where a number of trends that had been in place for many years have started to shift given geopolitical influences, trade influences and I think increasingly flow of funds influences.”
In Canada, many of the gains were coming from the technology sector. Locke said that part of the market has seen some recent volatility driven by the broad-based technological changes from generative AI.
“I think some of the impacts are going to be up and down as the market really tries to discount that risk, which is still a bit of an unknown,” he said.
Separately, CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada and TD Bank Group all reported profits up from a year earlier on Thursday, boosted by trading revenue and other market-related gains even as some results hinted at pockets of stress beneath the surface. Shares of CIBC rose 2.89%, RBC lost 2.14%, while TD Bank group gained 1.64%. Locke said Canada’s banking sector appears to be performing “relatively well.”
“We’ve had a relatively slow growth economy in Canada, but when we look at the capital markets businesses, when we look at the retail banking businesses, the results have generally been reasonably strong,” he said.
“Some of the worries that I think have crept in and around the edges of banking have not materialized the way that perhaps we would have expected.”
The worst day for Nvidia’s stock since last spring dragged the U.S. market lower on Thursday, even though most stocks on Wall Street rose.
Nvidia, whose chips are helping to power the AI boom, reported another stellar quarter of profit growth that breezed past analysts’ expectations. It also gave a forecast for revenue in the current quarter that once again topped Wall Street’s estimates.
But such blowout performances have become so typical for Nvidia that they’re losing their oomph. Its stock sank 5.5 per cent for worst loss since April.
Because Nvidia’s is the largest stock in the U.S. market by value, it has more influence on the S&P 500 than any other. It alone accounted for more than four-fifths of the S&P 500’s loss.
Some of the sharpest swings in financial markets were for oil, where prices swung sharply as the United States and Iran held indirect talks about Iran’s nuclear program. The April crude oil contract was down 21 cents US at US$65.21 per barrel.
A peaceful solution would remove the threat of war, which investors worry could block the global flow of oil and drive up its price. The U.S. military has already built up the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades, which has raised the stakes.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.06 cents US compared with 73.07 cents US on Wednesday.
The April gold contract was down US$32.00 at US$5,194.20 an ounce.
— With files from The Associated Press