I took a group of high school students on a tour of various Bay Street trading floors last week. These days we spend a lot of time worrying about kids who seem more interested in making TikToks than making spreadsheets, but this tour renewed my faith in their generation. They asked pointed questions about long and short strategies, risk-adjusted returns, even the process of initial public offerings. Talk about advanced. When I was their age, I didn’t even know how to spell IPO.
Here are five things to know this week:
Big picture: Technically, the ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran expires on Tuesday. However, given the recent progress and the market’s rush to put this in the rear view, earnings might be a bigger focus for investors this week.
The S&P 500 hit a record high last week, advancing for the third week in a row. This puts April on track to post the best monthly gain since November, 2020. Meanwhile, the NASDAQ finished higher for the 13th session in a row, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since 1992.
The TSX has been less impressive, only up nearly 5 per cent in April, which is the best monthly gain since … well, February. We’re becoming spoiled. There are 94 companies reporting on the S&P 500 this week and consensus estimates suggest we will get a sixth quarter in a row of double-digit earnings growth.
Old dogs, new tricks: IBM IBM-N and Intel Corp. INTC-Q both report results this week and will be closely watched for progress on AI developments. Big blue has been crushed this year with shares of IBM down nearly 20 per cent from their peak in February on concerns that AI will eat into the software and consulting businesses.
Investors will want to know how disruptive announcements from Anthropic - specifically their code modernization platform, which aims to shorten the time it takes to modernize old systems from years to quarters - will affect growth plans. Dan Ives, senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities, argues innovation in AI is a tailwind to IBM. “As organizations move beyond experimentation and into production-scale use cases, IBM’s ability to combine software, consulting, and infrastructure into one integrated stack remains an important advantage,” he wrote in a preview note to clients.
Intel, which reports Thursday after the close, is trading at a 26-year high. That means it’s only a few dollars shy of hitting a record high for the first time since 2000. Will earnings get it there? Revenue is expected to fall and it’s also unlikely to turn a profit this quarter. So why is the stock up 87 per cent so far this year? After years of ceding market share, Intel is gaining traction with big customers. It has signed deals with Elon Musk’s companies as well as Alphabet Inc. GOOGL-Q to supply semiconductors, and there is renewed optimism Intel might get an external customer for its cutting edge chip manufacturing business.
The drive: Tesla, Inc. TSLA-Q shares were in a slump until last week when it rocketed 15 per cent in just five trading sessions, thanks to it revealing a chip meant to power future self-driving cars and robots. It’s against this backdrop that Tesla will report results Wednesday after the bell.
While self-driving cars and robots are its future, its present looks less exciting. In the first quarter, Tesla had more unsold cars in inventory than any time in its history. “Recent concerns over EV demand… higher costs, higher capital spending requirements, and slow progress of robo-taxi and Optimus have weighed on stock, in our view,” UBS analyst Joseph Spak wrote in a note to clients.
Still, Mr. Spak upgraded the stock to neutral from sell, noting the stock trades “more on sentiment…than fundamentals.” The market may be content to switch from a struggling EV narrative to the future of physical AI in which Tesla is a leader, said Mr. Spak.
Pick up the phone: Rogers Communications Inc. RCI-B-T reports quarterly results Wednesday morning. The stock has been languishing around a 10-month low and is down 11 per cent so far in 2026. Two issues are plaguing not just Rogers, but the broader telecom sector.
The first is slower population growth, which means slower subscriber growth for the phone companies. The second is increased price competition between the carriers. Put together, the telco sector is contending with fewer customers and charging less.
Investors will want to hear about how the company plans to navigate those challenges this year. And it doesn’t look like sports can save the business (Rogers is the majority owner of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd.) with the Toronto Blue Jays off to a slow start and the Maple Leafs out of the playoffs.
Penny saver: We’ll get a sense of how much the war in Iran increased the cost of living for Canadians with inflation numbers set to land Monday morning. Headline consumer prices are expected to increase 1.1 per cent from February, according to consensus estimates. This would be the biggest month-over-month gain since February of last year.
It’s reasonable to expect a “large” CPI figure, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem told reporters on Friday. However, he said it will likely remain under 3 per cent. Minutes from the Bank of Canada’s March 18 meeting showed the central bank was hesitant to increase rates before seeing how the war evolved while being mindful of downside risks from the upcoming renegotiation of USCMA.
In the Money with Amber Kanwar is Canada’s top investing podcast. New episodes out Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe now. www.inthemoneypod.com