Canada’s main stock index edged lower on Tuesday, driven by losses in financial and capped communication sectors, although miners gained on the back of higher prices for precious metals.
At 10:22 a.m. ET, the Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was down 9.62 points, or 0.05%, at 19,775.25.
Financials led the losses on the benchmark index, falling 0.5%.
Canada’s big bank results this week are expected to bring forth challenges lenders face in setting aside more funds for bad loans in a tough economy, leading to a slowdown in deal-making and forcing borrowers to rethink fresh mortgages.
Capped communications sector also fell 0.5%.
The materials sector, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, added 0.3% as gold prices rose above $1,900 an ounce on Tuesday, helped by a softer U.S. dollar and a slide in bond yields.
Energy and rate-sensitive technology shares rose 0.6% and 0.3%, respectively.
Canadian equities have been down in five of the last seven trading sessions and are set for their biggest monthly fall since May as investors remained on edge after hotter-than-expected July consumer price data.
Investors are also keeping an eager eye on the meeting of central bankers at Jackson Hole which starts on Thursday, and will be closely monitored for more clues on the direction of U.S. interest rates.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the meeting will be the main highlight on Friday.
“Chairman Powell is going to be quite hawkish. Maybe not as hawkish as last time but certainly hawkish enough that his message will be ‘we’re not done yet, we’re still data dependent,” Phil Blancato, CEO Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management, said.
Wall Street is drifting Tuesday and may be heading toward its first back-to-back gain in what’s been a miserable August.
The S&P 500 was up 0.1% in early trading, coming off a gain from Monday powered by Big Tech stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 7 points, or less than 0.1%, at 34,456, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.
Stocks have struggled this month as yields have shot upward in the bond market, which cranks up the pressure on other investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged a bit higher Tuesday, a day after reaching its highest level since 2007.
Nvidia, one of Wall Street’s most influential stocks, swung from an early gain to a loss of 1.1% ahead of its earnings report on Wednesday, one that could be pivotal for the stock market.
The chipmaker has been at the center of Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, which investors believe will create immense profits for companies. Nvidia’s stock has already more than tripled this year, and it likely faces a high a bar to justify the huge move.
Analysts expect Nvidia to say on Wednesday that its revenue swelled by nearly $4.5 billion during the spring to $11.19 billion from a year earlier.
Another Big Tech stock, Microsoft, was the strongest single force pushing the S&P 500 higher. It rose 0.7% as U.K. regulators consider a revamped bid by the company to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard, which would be one of the biggest deals in tech history.
Also helping to lift the S&P 500 was Lowe’s, which rose 4% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The home improvement retailer also stood by its forecast for results over the full year, and said it gave over $100 million in bonuses to its front-line workers.
On the losing side of Wall Street, Dick’s Sporting Goods plunged 24.3% after its profit for the latest quarter fell well short of expectations. It also cut its forecast for earnings over the full year, citing “inventory shrink.” That’s a term the industry uses to refer to theft and other losses of goods that never become sales.
Macy’s fell 6.7% despite reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than Wall Street expected. It also stood by its financial forecasts for the full year, though it said economic conditions look uncertain.
In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield ticked up to 4.35% from 4.34% late Monday. It’s the centerpiece of the bond market and helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans.
The two-year Treasury yield, which moves more on expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose to 5.03% from 5.00%.
More fireworks could come later this week, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to give a highly anticipated speech. He’ll be speaking Friday at a Fed event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the site of several major policy announcements by the Fed in the past.
The Fed has already hiked its main interest rate to the highest level since 2001 in hopes of grinding high inflation down to its target of 2%. High rates work by slowing the entire economy bluntly and hurting prices for investments.
Inflation has come down considerably from its peak above 9% last summer, but economists say getting the last percentage point of improvement may be the most difficult.
The hope is that Powell on Friday may indicate the Fed is done with hiking interest rates for this cycle and that it could begin cutting them next year. But strong reports on the economy recently are hurting such hopes. A solid job market and spending by U.S. households could be feeding more fuel into pressures pushing upward on inflation.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mostly higher. Stocks rose in China to recover some of their sharp losses driven by worries about its faltering economic recovery.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong climbed 1%, though it remains down 11.4% for August so far. Stocks in Shanghai added 0.9% to trim its loss for the month to 5.2%.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.