Canada’s main stock index edged higher on Thursday as technology shares clawed back some of the previous day’s declines and investors cheered Toronto-Dominion Bank’s quarterly results.
The S&P/TSX composite index ended up 14.84 points, or 0.1%, at 25,854.01, with the market staying close to the record high that it posted earlier this week on easing global trade uncertainty.
U.S. stocks finished little changed as Treasury yields eased off recent highs after the House of Representatives passed U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill.
“Not saying that we’re out of the woods ... but in Canada, we’re in a very low rate environment, inflation has come down dramatically, you’ve got pretty decent earnings,” said Barry Schwartz, chief investment officer at Baskin Wealth Management.
TD Bank reported better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter, powered by strength at its wholesale banking arm, and said it would lay off 2% of its workforce to cut costs and scale up its digital and AI investments.
Shares of Canada’s second-largest lender gained 3.2%, while the heavily weighted financials sector ended 0.6% higher.
Recent strength in bank stocks is a sign that investors are not expecting a deep economic slowdown, Schwartz said.
“The smart money is saying if there is a recession it may be a technical one, with no real impact on the economy and brighter days are ahead,” added Schwartz.
Technology also rose 0.6%, while the materials group, which includes metal mining shares, ended 0.8% lower as gold gave back some of its recent gains.
Recent concerns about the U.S. deficit have pushed up Treasury yields and pressured stocks, but longer-dated yields fell on Thursday, allowing stocks to take a breather. The benchmark U.S. 10-year note yield fell 5.4 basis points to 4.543% after hitting its highest since February.
The benchmark S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended flat, while the Nasdaq edged higher. All three major Wall Street indexes had posted their biggest single-day percentage drops in a month on Wednesday as Treasury yields spiked on U.S. debt worries.
The Republican-controlled House voted by a slim margin to pass the bill, which would fulfill many of Trump’s campaign pledges to his political base, but will increase the $36.2 trillion U.S. debt pile by $3.8 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Investors are also weighing the impact of Trump’s tariffs on U.S. imports, including on consumer prices.
“The problem today was the tax bill, which appears to have passed,” said George Young, partner and portfolio manager at Villere & Co in New Orleans. “But we are thinking about bigger potential problems and the two main things on the table are tariffs and interest rates.”
“The market hates uncertainty and we’ve still got this overhang of the tariffs and the bond market, which is totally apolitical and totally international,” Young added.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell just 1.35 points to 41,859.09, the S&P 500 lost merely 2.60 points or 0.04% at 5,842.01 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 53.09 points, or 0.28%, at 18,925.74.
Eight out of 11 S&P 500 subsectors finished lower, led by utilities, healthcare, energy and consumer staples stocks. Consumer discretionary, communication services and technology stocks advanced.
Megacap growth stocks, including Nvidia, Amazon and Tesla, gained. Alphabet was 1.3% firmer after touching a nearly three-month high. Apple ended down 0.36%.
Snowflake jumped more than 13% after the cloud computing firm raised its fiscal 2026 product revenue forecast.
Analog Devices fell 4.6% despite the semiconductor manufacturer beating Wall Street estimates for quarterly results.
Shares of solar energy companies including First Solar dropped as Trump’s tax bill is expected to end a number of green-energy subsidies. First Solar finished down 4.3%.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.17-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 68 new highs and 99 new lows on the NYSE. The S&P 500 posted four new 52-week highs and nine new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 49 new highs and 109 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 16.09 billion shares, compared with the 17.56 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
Reuters, Globe staff